The Best Anarchist, Communist, & Socialist Books


anarchist books


The Best Anarchist, Communist, and Socialist Books reading list covers nearly all the essential writers of left-wing philosophy and their essential texts. Being limited to 100 books the list is not complete and doesn't represent all the books worth your time. For example, Eric Hobsbawm's text on Marxism is included, and even though his 'Age of' series is essential reading it's not included here. The other lists on this site help to fill these gaps and all good socialists should be studying history, sociology, economics, etc. There are also many history books below on revolutions and on the countries considered socialist or communist, China, Cuba, and the Soviet Union.

1. The Marx-Engels Reader

By Robert C. Tucker; Karl Marx; Friedrich Engels

This revised and enlarged edition of the leading anthology provides the essential writings of Marx and Engels--those works necessary for an introduction to Marxist thought and ideology. More »

The Marx-Engels Reader
The Conquest of Bread

2. The Conquest of Bread

By Peter Kropotkin | Used Price: 80% Off

The Conquest of Bread is Peter Kropotkin's most detailed description of the ideal society, embodying anarchist communism, and of the social revolution that was to achieve it. Marshall Shatz's introduction to this edition traces Kropotkin's evolution as an anarchist, from his origins in the Russian aristocracy to his ... More »

3. Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution

By Peter Kropotkin | Used Price: 50% Off

In this cornerstone of modern liberal social theory, Peter Kropotkin states that the most effective human and animal communities are essentially cooperative, rather than competitive. Kropotkin based this classic on his observations of natural phenomena and history, forming a work of stunning and well-reasoned scholarship. Essential to the ... More »

Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution
How to Change the World: Reflections on Marx and Marxism

4. How to Change the World: Reflections on Marx and Marxism

By Eric Hobsbawm | Used Price: 50% Off

In the 144 years since Karl Marx's Das Kapital was published, the doctrine that bears his name has been embraced by millions in the name of equality, and just as dramatically has fallen from grace with the retreat of communism from the western world. But as the free ... More »

5. Roads to Freedom

By Bertrand Russell

"Roads to Freedom" is a fascinating glimpse of progressive intellectual politics at the turn of the twentieth century. Written at the end of the first world war in the midst of great and rapid world change, the book is an historical analysis and criticism of Socialism, Anarchism and ... More »

Roads to Freedom
Two Cheers for Anarchism: Six Easy Pieces on Autonomy, Dignity, and Meaningful Work and Play

6. Two Cheers for Anarchism: Six Easy Pieces on Autonomy, Dignity, and Meaningful Work and Play

By James Scott

James Scott taught us what's wrong with seeing like a state. Now, in his most accessible and personal book to date, the acclaimed social scientist makes the case for seeing like an anarchist. Inspired by the core anarchist faith in the possibilities of voluntary ... More »

7. Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism

By Richard D. Wolff | Used Price: 50% Off

"Richard Wolff is the leading socialist economist in the country. This book is required reading for anyone concerned about a fundamental transformation of the ailing capitalist economy."—Cornel West“Richard Wolff’s constructive and innovative ideas suggest new and promising foundations for a much more authentic democracy and sustainable and equitable ... More »

Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism
Government in the Future

8. Government in the Future

By Noam Chomsky

In this classic talk delivered at the Poetry Center, New York, on February 16, 1970, Noam Chomsky articulates a clear, uncompromising vision of social change. Chomsky contrasts the classical liberal, libertarian socialist, state socialist, and state capitalist world views and then defends a libertarian socialist vision as "the ... More »

9. Capital

By Karl Marx | Used Price: 70% Off

A landmark work in the understanding of capitalism, bourgeois society and the economics of class conflict, Karl Marx's Capital is translated by Ben Fowkes with an introduction by Ernest Mandel in Penguin Classics. One of the most notorious works of modern times, as well as one ... More »

Capital
Statism and Anarchy

10. Statism and Anarchy

By Michael Bakunin

Statism and Anarchy is a complete English translation of the last work by the great Russian anarchist Michael Bakunin. It was written in 1873, in the aftermath of the rise of the German Empire and the clash between Bakunin and Karl Marx in the first International. ... More »

11. The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe's Twentieth Century

By Sheri Berman | Used Price: 60% Off

Political history in the industrial world has indeed ended, argues this pioneering study, but the winner has been social democracy - an ideology and political movement that has been as influential as it has been misunderstood. Berman looks at the history of social democracy from its origins in ... More »

The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe's Twentieth Century
The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger

12. The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger

By Richard G. Wilkinson; Kate Pickett | 60% Off

It is a well-established fact that in rich societies the poor have shorter lives and suffer more from almost every social problem. The Spirit Level, based on thirty years of research, takes this truth a step further. One common factor links the healthiest and happiest societies: the degree ... More »

13. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time

By Karl Polanyi | Used Price: 50% Off

In Polanyi's classic work of economic history and sociology, he examines societal changes since the Industrial Revolution and expertly explains the inadequacies of the free market. Published in 1944, it is as relevant as today as ever, with Harvard Professor Stephen Walt recommending it in his Top 10 ... More »

The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time
One-Dimensional Man

14. One-Dimensional Man

By Herbert Marcuse | Used Price: 70% Off

Originally published in 1964, One-Dimensional Man quickly became one of the most important texts in the ensuing decade of radical political change. This second edition, newly introduced by Marcuse scholar Douglas Kellner, presents Marcuse's best-selling work to another generation of readers in the context of contemporary events. More »

15. The Motorcycle Diaries

By Ernesto Che Guevara | Used Price: 70% Off

  The book of the popular movie STARRING GAEL GARCIA BERNAL NOW A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER   The young Che Guevara’s lively and highly entertaining travel diary, ... More »

The Motorcycle Diaries
Why Not Socialism?

16. Why Not Socialism?

By G. A. Cohen | Used Price: 60% Off

Is socialism desirable? Is it even possible? In this concise book, one of the world's leading political philosophers presents with clarity and wit a compelling moral case for socialism and argues that the obstacles in its way are exaggerated. There ... More »

17. Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized Society

By Paul Goodman | Used Price: 70% Off

Paul Goodman’s Growing Up Absurd was a runaway best seller when it was first published in 1960, and it became one of the defining texts of the New Left. Goodman was a writer and thinker who broke every mold and did it brilliantly—he was a novelist, poet, and ... More »

Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized Society
The Society of the Spectacle

18. The Society of the Spectacle

By Guy Debord | Used Price: 50% Off

The Das Kapital of the 20th century. An essential text, and the main theoretical work of the situationists. Few works of political and cultural theory have been as enduringly provocative. From its publication amid the social upheavals of the 1960's up to the present, the volatile theses of ... More »

19. Homage to Catalonia

By George Orwell | Used Price: 70% Off

'Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism as I understand it'. Thus wrote Orwell following his experiences as a militiaman in the Spanish Civil War, chronicled in Homage to Catalonia. Here he ... More »

Homage to Catalonia
Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism

20. Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism

By David Harvey

"What I am seeking here is a better understanding of the contradictions of capital, not of capitalism. I want to know how the economic engine of capitalism works the way it does, and why it might stutter and stall and sometimes appear to be on the verge of ... More »

21. What Then Must We Do?

By Gar Alperovitz | Used Price: 50% Off

Never before have so many Americans been more frustrated with our economic system, more fearful that it is failing, or more open to fresh ideas about a new one. The seeds of a new movement demanding change are forming. But just what is this thing called a new ... More »

What Then Must We Do?
Selections from the Prison Notebooks

22. Selections from the Prison Notebooks

By Antonio Gramsci | Used Price: 60% Off

The Prison Notebooks (Quaderni del carcere) were a series of notebooks written by the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci was imprisoned by the Italian Fascist regime in 1926. The notebooks were written between 1929 and 1935, when Gramsci ... More »

23. The Revolution of Everyday Life

By Raoul Vaneigem

One of the most important exponents of Situationist ideas, this treatise presents an impassioned critique of modern capitalism and serves as a cornerstone of modern radical thought. Originally published in early 1968, the book both kindled and colored the May 1968 upheavals in ... More »

The Revolution of Everyday Life
The Wretched of the Earth

24. The Wretched of the Earth

By Frantz Fanon; Jean-Paul Sartre | 50% Off

A distinguished psychiatrist from Martinique who took part in the Algerian Nationalist Movement, Frantz Fanon was one of the most important theorists of revolutionary struggle, colonialism, and racial difference in history. Fanon’s masterwork is a classic alongside Edward Said’s Orientalism or The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and it ... More »

25. The Making of the English Working Class

By E. P. Thompson | Used Price: 60% Off

This book transformed our understanding of English social history. Thompson revealed how working class people were not merely victims of history, moved by powerful forces outside of themselves, but were also active in creating their own culture and future, during the degradation of the industrial revolution. More »

The Making of the English Working Class
The Economics of Feasible Socialism

26. The Economics of Feasible Socialism

By Alec Nove | Used Price: 90% Off

This is a path-breaking book. Characteristically readable, controversial and full of insights, Nove identifies a workable socialist programme, achievable in the lifetime of a child born today, that avoids far-fetched or utopian assumptions. This text has been immensely influential in the West, and is available in translation ... More »

27. Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, 1870-1940

By Steven J. Hirsch; Lucien van der Walt; Dongyoun Hwang; Anthony Gorman

Narratives of anarchist and syndicalist history during the era of the first globalization and imperialism (1870-1930) have overwhelmingly been constructed around a Western European tradition centered on discrete national cases. This parochial perspective typically ignores transnational connections and the contemporaneous existence of large and influential libertarian movements in ... More »

Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, 1870-1940
The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic

28. The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic

By Peter Linebaugh; Marcus Rediker

A history from below, The Many Headed Hydra tells the stories of sailors, slaves, pirates, laborers, market women, and indentured servant, explains their ideas of freedom and equality, and demonstrates their role in making the modern world. More »

29. The Ecology of Freedom: The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy

By Murray Bookchin

"The very notion of the domination of nature by man stems from the very real domination of human by human." With this succinct formulation, Murray Bookchin launches his most ambitious work, The Ecology of Freedom. An engaging and extremely readable book of breathtaking scope, its inspired synthesis of ... More »

The Ecology of Freedom: The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy
Main Currents of Marxism: The Founders - The Golden Age - The Breakdown

30. Main Currents of Marxism: The Founders - The Golden Age - The Breakdown

By Leszek Kolakowski | Used Price: 60% Off

Leszek Kolakowski’s masterpiece, one of the twentieth century’s most important books—for the first time in a one-volume paperback. Renowned philosopher Leszek Kolakowski was one of the first scholars to reveal both the shortcomings and the dangers posed by communist regimes. He now presents, for the first time in ... More »

31. The Nordic Model of Social Democracy

By Nik Brandal; Oivind Bratberg; Dag Einar Thorsen

Since the late 1920s, social democracy has been preeminent in the politics of Sweden, Denmark and Norway, through dominant parties and ideological hegemony of the center-left. The Nordic Model of Social Democracy relates the concept of the Nordic model to the guiding role of social democratic ideology in ... More »

The Nordic Model of Social Democracy
The Soul at Work: From Alienation to Autonomy

32. The Soul at Work: From Alienation to Autonomy

By Franco 'bifo' Berardi

We can reach every point in the world but, more importantly, we can be reached from any point in the world. Privacy and its possibilities are abolished. ... More »

33. The Anarchists

By James Joll

James Joll's comprehensive book introduces the reader to the personalities, theories and practical politics of the anarchist movement throughout its history. In the first part the author discusses the early precursors of anarchism and in Part Two he presents the full spectrum of anarchist activity in many countries ... More »

The Anarchists
The State and Revolution

34. The State and Revolution

By Vladimir Lenin | Used Price: 70% Off

In July 1917, when the Provisional Government issued a warrant for his arrest, Lenin fled from Petrograd; later that year, The October Revolution swept him to supreme power. In the short intervening period he spent in Finland, he wrote his impassioned, never-completed master work on The State and ... More »

35. Anarcho-Syndicalism

By Rudolf Rocker | Used Price: 50% Off

In 1937, at the behest of Emma Goldman, Rocker penned this political and philosophical masterpiece as an introduction to the ideals fueling the Spanish social revolution and resistance to capitalism the world over. Within, Rocker offers an introduction to anarchist ideas, a history of the international workers’ movement, ... More »

Anarcho-Syndicalism
Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation

36. Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation

By Silvia Federici

Literary Nonfiction. CALIBAN AND THE WITCH is a history of the body in the transition to capitalism. Moving from the peasant revolts of the late Middle Ages to the witch-hunts and the rise of mechanical philosophy, Federici investigates the capitalist rationalization of social reproduction. She shows how the ... More »

37. Considerations on Western Marxism

By Perry Anderson | Used Price: 70% Off

"A splendid essay on intellectual history ... an elegant and accute, brilliantly laconic and deeply felt survey." -- Eric Hobsbawm More »

Considerations on Western Marxism
Anarchy in Action

38. Anarchy in Action

By Colin Ward | Used Price: 50% Off

With chapters on the family, topless federations, schools, housing, crime, employment, welfare, deviancy, planning, and more, this is probably the best practical example of anarchist ideas in action. As he writes in his introduction "This book is not intended for people who had spent a lifetime pondering the ... More »

39. Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology

By David Graeber | Used Price: 60% Off

Everywhere anarchism is on the upswing as a political philosophy—everywhere, that is, except the academy. Anarchists repeatedly appeal to anthropologists for ideas about how society might be reorganized on a more egalitarian, less alienating basis. Anthropologists, terrified of being accused of romanticism, respond with silence . . . ... More »

Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology
The Power Elite

40. The Power Elite

By C. Wright Mills | Used Price: 70% Off

First published in 1956, The Power Elite stands as a contemporary classic of social science and social criticism. C. Wright Mills examines and critiques the organization of power in the United States, calling attention to three firmly interlocked prongs of power: the military, corporate, and political elite. The ... More »

41. Living at the Edges of Capitalism: Adventures in Exile and Mutual Aid

By Andrej Grubacic; Denis O'Hearn

Since the earliest development of states, groups of people escaped or were exiled. As capitalism developed, people tried to escape capitalist constraints connected with state control. This powerful book gives voice to three communities living at the edges of capitalism: Cossacks on the Don River in Russia; Zapatistas ... More »

Living at the Edges of Capitalism: Adventures in Exile and Mutual Aid
Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century

42. Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century

By Harry Braverman

This widely acclaimed book, first published in 1974, was a classic from its first day in print. Written in a direct, inviting way by Harry Braverman, whose years as an industrial worker gave him rich personal insight into work, Labor and Monopoly Capital overturned the reigning ideologies of ... More »

43. The Government of No One: The Theory and Practice of Anarchism

By Ruth Kinna

A magisterial study of the history and theory of one of the most controversial political movements Anarchism routinely gets a bad press. It's usually seen as meaning chaos and disorder -- or even nothing at all. And yet, from Occupy Wall Street to Pussy Riot, Noam Chomsky ... More »

The Government of No One: The Theory and Practice of Anarchism
Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition

44. Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition

By Cedric J. Robinson; Robin D. G. Kelley

In this ambitious work, first published in 1983, Cedric Robinson demonstrates that efforts to understand black people's history of resistance solely through the prism of Marxist theory are incomplete and inaccurate. Marxist analyses tend to presuppose European models of history and experience that downplay the significance of black ... More »

45. Workers' Councils

By Anton Pannekoek | Used Price: 50% Off

Contemporaries across the spectrum of Left thought, from Antonio Negri to Noam Chomsky, are falling over each other to claim the mantle of Left Communism. Left Communism is the theory and practice of worker control and self-organization whose adherents provided the main opposition to the Bolsheviks. Rarely printed, ... More »

Workers' Councils
The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution

46. The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution

By Christopher Hill | Used Price: 70% Off

Within the English revolution of the mid-seventeenth century which resulted in the triumph of the protestant ethic - the ideology of the propertied class - there threatened another, quite different, revolution. Its success 'might have established communal property, a far wider democracy in political and legal institutions, might ... More »

47. Anarchism: From Theory to Practice

By Daniel Guerin; Noam Chomsky | 80% Off

Anarchism: From Theory to Practice is a book by Daniel Guérin, termed a "definitional tract in the 'ABCs' of anarchism". First published in 1970, it is Guérin's most well-known work, and was ... More »

Anarchism: From Theory to Practice
Parecon: Life After Capitalism

48. Parecon: Life After Capitalism

By Michael Albert | Under $1.00

‘What do you want?’ is a constant query put to economic and globalization activists decrying current poverty, alienation and degradation. In this highly praised new work, destined to attract worldwide attention and support, Michael Albert provides an answer: Participatory Economics, ‘Parecon’ for short, a new economy, an alternative ... More »

49. The Origins of Totalitarianism

By Hannah Arendt | Used Price: 60% Off

Hannah Arendt's definitive work on totalitarianism and an essential component of any study of twentieth-century political history   The Origins of Totalitarianism begins with the rise of anti-Semitism in central and western Europe in the 1800s and continues with an examination of European colonial imperialism from 1884 to ... More »

The Origins of Totalitarianism
Reading Capital

50. Reading Capital

By Louis Althusser; Etienne Balibar; Roger Establet

Establishing a rigorous program of “symptomatic readingâ€Â that cuts through the silences and lacunae of Capital to reveal its philosophical core, Louis Althusser interprets Marx’s structural analysis of production as a revolutionary break—the basis of a completely new science. Building on a series of Althussers’s conceptual innovations that ... More »

51. Reform or Revolution and Other Writings

By Rosa Luxemburg

A polemic writing by the famous "Red Rosa" Luxemburg, Reform or Revolution (1899) explains why capitalism can never overcome its internal contradictions. An effective refutation of revisionist interpretations of Marxist doctrine, it defines the position of scientific socialism on the issues of social reforms, the state, democracy, and ... More »

Reform or Revolution and Other Writings
Li Ta-Chao and the Origins of Chinese Marxism

52. Li Ta-Chao and the Origins of Chinese Marxism

By Maurice Meisner | Used Price: 60% Off

Maurice Jerome Meisner was an historian of 20th century China and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His study of the Chinese revolution and the People's Republic was in conjunction with his strong interest in socialist ideology, Marxism, and Maoism in particular. He authored a number of books ... More »

53. Discourse on Inequality

By Jean-Jacques Rousseau

One of the most respected translations of this key work of 18th-century philosophy, this text includes a brief introduction to the two works as well as abundant notes that range from simple explanations to speculative interpretations. More »

Discourse on Inequality
Confronting the Third World

54. Confronting the Third World

By Gabriel Kolko | Used Price: 80% Off

Kolko, author of eight books on modern American history, here examines the United States's involvement with Third World countries. His major thrust is that the United States was maintaining in Central America, and creating in the Middle East, an empire based on economic advantage and ideologically supported by ... More »

55. Monopoly Capital

By Paul A. Baran; Paul Sweezy | 70% Off

This landmark text by Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy is a classic of twentieth-century radical thought, a hugely influential book that continues to shape our understanding of modern capitalism. “This book… deals with a vital area of economics, has a unique approach, is stimulating and well written. It ... More »

Monopoly Capital
The Tradition Of Workers' Control

56. The Tradition Of Workers' Control

By Geoffrey Ostergaard

Workers' control of industry, a phrase coined by the Guild Socialists, recalls the libertarian aspirations of the first rebels against the slavery inherent in the capitalist mode of production. A history and analysis of the workers in Britain who own and control their workplaces.... More »

57. Empire As A Way of Life

By William Appleman Williams | 50% Off

“An unblinkered look at our imperial past . . . a perceptive work by one of our most perceptive historians.â€Ââ€”Studs TerkelA work of remarkable prescience, Empire As A Way of Life is influential historian William Appleman Williams’s groundbreaking work highlighting imperialism—“empire as a way of lifeâ€Ââ€”as the dominant ... More »

Empire As A Way of Life
A People's History of the United States

58. A People's History of the United States

By Howard Zinn | Used Price: 70% Off

A People's History of the United States is an attempt by Howard Zinn to present an alternative history of America from below. It's a view of US history from the perspective of ordinary and oppressed people. It's extremely popular and - in addition to being on many high ... More »

59. Marxism and Literature

By Raymond Williams | Used Price: 60% Off

This book extends the theme of Raymond Williams's earlier work in literary and cultural analysis. He analyzes previous contributions to a Marxist theory of literature from Marx himself to Lukacs, Althusser, and Goldmann, and develops his own approach by outlining a theory of `cultural materialism' which integrates Marxist ... More »

Marxism and Literature
Escape from Freedom

60. Escape from Freedom

By Erich Fromm | Used Price: 70% Off

If humanity cannot live with the dangers and responsibilities inherent in freedom, it will probably turn to authoritarianism. This is the central idea of Escape from Freedom, a landmark work by one of the most distinguished thinkers of our time, and a book that is as timely now ... More »

61. The Anarchist Collectives: Workers' Self-Management in the Spanish Revolution

By Sam Dolgoff

An analyses on the radical collectives organized in Spain. "The eyewitness reports and commentary presented in this highly important study reveal a different understanding of the nature of socialism and the means for achieving it."--Noam Chomsky More »

The Anarchist Collectives: Workers' Self-Management in the Spanish Revolution
The French Revolution: From its Origins to 1793

62. The French Revolution: From its Origins to 1793

By Georges Lefebvre

George Lefebvre is widely considered to be the greatest authority on the French Revolution and this is his magnum opus on the subject. This text is a classic and is still relevent to the field over 40 years after it was first published. More »

63. Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village

By William Hinton

More than forty years after its initial publication, William Hinton’s Fanshen continues to be the essential volume for those fascinated with China’s revolutionary process of rural reform and social change. A pioneering work, Fanshan is a marvelous and revealing look into life in the Chinese countryside, where tradition ... More »

Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village
Late Capitalism

64. Late Capitalism

By Ernest Mandel

Late Capitalism is the first major synthesis to have been produced by the contemporary revival of Marxist economics. It represents, in fact, the only systematic attempt so far ever made to combine the general theory of the “laws of motionâ€Â of the capitalist mode of production developed by Marx, ... More »

65. Ecology and Socialism: Solutions to Capitalist Ecological Crisis

By Chris Williams | Used Price: 60% Off

Around the world, consciousness of the threat to our environment is growing. The majority of solutions on offer, from using efficient light bulbs to biking to work, focus on individual lifestyle changes, yet the scale of the crisis requires far deeper adjustments. Ecology and Socialism argues that time ... More »

Ecology and Socialism: Solutions to Capitalist Ecological Crisis
The Industrial Worker, 1840-1860

66. The Industrial Worker, 1840-1860

By Norman Ware | Used Price: 60% Off

Besides the slavery issue, one of the major notes of American life in the years preceding the Civil War was created by the Industrial Revolution. It produced remarkable social and industrial upheavals which were repugnant to an astonishingly large numbers of Americans. Despite national prosperity, industrial workers suffered ... More »

67. The Eastern Mediterranean and the Making of Global Radicalism, 1860-1914

By Ilham Khuri-Makdisi

In this groundbreaking book, Ilham Khuri-Makdisi establishes the existence of a special radical trajectory spanning four continents and linking Beirut, Cairo, and Alexandria between 1860 and 1914. She shows that socialist and anarchist ideas were regularly discussed, disseminated, and reworked among intellectuals, workers, dramatists, Egyptians, Ottoman Syrians, ethnic ... More »

The Eastern Mediterranean and the Making of Global Radicalism, 1860-1914
Soviet Politics: 1917-1991

68. Soviet Politics: 1917-1991

By Mary McAuley | Used Price: 80% Off

Now available in paperback, this timely work offers an authoritative and lively history of the entire spectrum of Soviet politics, from the rise of Lenin and the October Revolution of 1917 to the emergence of the Commonwealth of Independent States. It discusses in fascinating detail how Lenin's Communist ... More »

69. History and Class Consciousness

By Georg Lukacs | Used Price: 60% Off

This is the first time one of the most important of Lukács' early theoretical writings, published in Germany in 1923, has been made available in ... More »

History and Class Consciousness
The Second Sex

70. The Second Sex

By Simone de Beauvoir | Used Price: 50% Off

Newly translated and unabridged in English for the first time, Simone de Beauvoir’s masterwork is a powerful analysis of the Western notion of “woman,â€Â and a groundbreaking exploration of inequality and otherness.  This long-awaited new edition reinstates significant portions of the original French text that were cut in ... More »

71. From Marxism to Post-Marxism?

By Goran Therborn | Used Price: 60% Off

In this pithy and panoramic work—both stimulating for the specialist and accessible to the general reader—one of the world’s leading social theorists, Göran Therborn, traces the trajectory of Marxism in the twentieth century and anticipates its legacy for radical thought in the twenty-first. More »

From Marxism to Post-Marxism?
State, Power, Socialism

72. State, Power, Socialism

By Nikos Poulantzas

In State, Power, Socialism, the leading theorist of the state and European communism advances a vigorous critique of contemporary Marxist theories of the state. Arguing against a general theory of the state, Poulantzas identifies forms of class power crucial to socialist strategy that go beyond the state apparatus. More »

73. Pedagogy of the Oppressed

By Paulo Freire | Used Price: 60% Off

This text argues that the ignorance and lethargy of the poor are the direct result of the whole economic, social and political domination. The book suggests that in some countries the oppressors use the system to maintain a 'culture of silence'. Through the right kind of education, the ... More »

Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century

74. Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century

By Eric R. Wolf | Used Price: 80% Off

"Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century provides a good short course in the major popular revolutions of our century--in Russia, Mexico, China, Algeria, Cuba, and Viet Nam--not from the perspective of governments or parties or leaders, but from the perspective of the peasant peoples whose lives and ways ... More »

75. The Russian Anarchists

By Paul Avrich | Used Price: 70% Off

In the turmoil of the Russian insurrection of 1905 and civil war of 1917, the anarchists attempted to carry out their program of “direct actionâ€Ââ€”workers’ control of production, the creation of free rural and urban communes, and partisan warfare against the enemies of a free society.Avrich consulted published ... More »

The Russian Anarchists
Taking the Risk Out of Democracy: Corporate Propaganda versus Freedom and Liberty

76. Taking the Risk Out of Democracy: Corporate Propaganda versus Freedom and Liberty

By Alex Carey

In this lucid and compelling account, Alex Carey documents the 20th century history of corporate propaganda as practiced by U.S. businesses, and its export to and adoption by other western democracies, chiefly the United Kingdom and Australia. The collection examines how and why the business elite has successfully ... More »

77. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy

By Barrington Moore | Used Price: 70% Off

A landmark in comparative history and a challenge to scholars of all lands who are trying to learn how we arrived at where we are now. -New York Times Book Review More »

Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy
World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction

78. World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction

By Immanuel Wallerstein | 60% Off

In World-Systems Analysis, Immanuel Wallerstein provides a concise and accessible introduction to the comprehensive approach that he pioneered thirty years ago to understanding the history and development of the modern world. Since Wallerstein first developed world-systems analysis, it has become a widely utilized methodology within the historical social ... More »

79. The Revolution and the Civil War in Spain

By Pierre Broue; Emile Temime

The tragic defeat of the Spanish Civil War has long fascinated those who continue to struggle for social justice. Pierre Broué and Émile Témine’s long-out-of-print history details the internal political dynamics that led the popular front to hold back radical measures that would have galvanized the working class ... More »

The Revolution and the Civil War in Spain
Beyond the Fragments: Feminism and the Making of Socialism

80. Beyond the Fragments: Feminism and the Making of Socialism

By Sheila Rowbotham; Lynne Segal; Hilary Wainwright

A generation ago, they wrote Beyond the Fragments. Inspired by the activism of the 1970s and facing the imminent triumph of the Right under Margaret Thatcher, they sought to apply our experiences as feminists to creating stronger bonds of solidarity in a new ... More »

81. The Battle For Homestead, 1880-1892: Politics, Culture, and Steel

By Paul Krause | Used Price: 90% Off

The Homestead Strike, or Homestead Massacre, was one of the most serious strikes in US labour history, finishing in a battle between workers and private security agents. Paul Krause has written a brilliant and insightful history of the strike. More »

The Battle For Homestead, 1880-1892: Politics, Culture, and Steel
Reclaiming Work: Beyond the Wage-based Society

82. Reclaiming Work: Beyond the Wage-based Society

By Andre Gorz

Over the last twenty-five years, Western societies have beenreversing into the future. They are able neither to reproduce themselves in accordance with past norms, nor to exploit theunprecedented freedom offered by the savings in working time whichnew technology has generated. In this major new book, Andre Gorz argues ... More »

83. Socialism: Past and Future

By Michael Harrington | Used Price: 90% Off

On learning his cancer was inoperable, renowned intellectual Michael Harrington simply asked the doctors to keep him alive long enough “to complete a summary statement of the themes I had thought of throughout an activist life.â€Â And they did. Socialism: Past and Future is prominent thinker Michael Harrington’s ... More »

Socialism: Past and Future
Land and Freedom: The MST, the Zapatistas and Peasant Alternatives to Neoliberalism

84. Land and Freedom: The MST, the Zapatistas and Peasant Alternatives to Neoliberalism

By Leandro Vergara-Camus

The Zapatistas of Chiapas and the Landless Workers Movement (MST) of Brazil are often celebrated as shining examples in the global struggle against Neoliberalism. But what have these movements achieved in more than two decades of resistance and can any of these achievements realistically contribute to an alternative ... More »

85. Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics

By Paolo Virno; Michael Hardt

Over the past several decades, Italian revolutionary politics has offered a model for new forms of political thinking. Radical Thought in Italy continues that tradition by providing an original view of the potential for a radical democratic politics today that speaks not only to the Italian situation but ... More »

Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics
A History of the Cuban Revolution

86. A History of the Cuban Revolution

By Aviva Chomsky | Used Price: 60% Off

A History of the Cuban Revolution presents a concise socio-historical account of the Cuban Revolution of 1959, an event that continues to spark debate 50 years later. Balances a comprehensive overview of the political and economic events of the revolution with a look at the revolution's social ... More »

87. Queering Anarchism

By Deric Shannon; J. Rogue; C.B. Daring

"Definitely a book worth reading, regardless of the labels of normalcy you've pasted up to yourself or grown accustomed to letting others do the nasty gluing for you."?Bookslut"The divide is growing between the pro-military, pro-police, marriage-seeking gay and lesbian rights politics we see in the headlines every day ... More »

Queering Anarchism
Anarchism in Korea

88. Anarchism in Korea

By Dongyoun Hwang

A regional and transnational history of anarchism in Korea.This book provides a history of anarchism in Korea and challenges conventional views of Korean anarchism as merely part of nationalist ideology, situating the study within a wider East Asian regional context. Dongyoun Hwang demonstrates that although the anarchist movement ... More »

89. Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850-2000

By Geoff Eley | Used Price: 60% Off

Democracy in Europe has been a recent phenomenon. Only in the wake of World War II were democratic frameworks secured, and, even then, it was decades before democracy truly blanketed the continent. Neither given nor granted, democracy requires conflict, often violent confrontations, and challenges to the established political ... More »

Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850-2000
The State in Capitalist Society

90. The State in Capitalist Society

By Ralph Milliband

Presenting a sustained and concrete challenge to the current political consensus, this reference identifies the radical alternative of adopting socialism as the key issue facing civilization and the crucial condition of making substantial progress. Demonstrating that capitalist control of the state was so comprehensive that partial reforms were ... More »

91. The Russian Revolution

By Sheila Fitzpatrick

Sheila Fitzpatrick practically created the field of social studies in Soviet history. Her pioneering works include the classic text The Russian Revolution, a succinct, must read work for anyone studying Russian history. The book explores the roots of the revolution that was meant to transform the world ... More »

The Russian Revolution
Monster of the Twentieth Century: Kotoku Shusui and Japan's First Anti-Imperialist Movement

92. Monster of the Twentieth Century: Kotoku Shusui and Japan's First Anti-Imperialist Movement

By Robert Thomas Tierney; Kotoku Shusui

This extended monograph examines the work of the radical journalist Kotoku Shusui and Japan’s anti-imperialist movement of the early twentieth century. It includes the first English translation of Imperialism (Teikokushugi), Kotoku’s classic 1901 work. Kotoku Shusui was a Japanese socialist, anarchist, and critic of Japan’s ... More »

93. The People's Spring: The Future of the Arab Revolution

By Samir Amin

The 2011 outburst of uprisings by the Arab peoples caught the world’s attention, and this incisive analysis shows that the current Arab uprisings are primarily anti-imperialist—rather than anticapitalist—movements. Arguing that, to take control of their future, Arab peoples need to unify in a ... More »

The People's Spring: The Future of the Arab Revolution
The Method of Freedom: An Errico Malatesta Reader

94. The Method of Freedom: An Errico Malatesta Reader

By Errico Malatesta | Used Price: 50% Off

For sixty years, Errico Malatesta's involvement with international anarchism helped fuel the movement's radical approach to class and labor, and directly impacted the workers' movement in Italy. A talented newspaper journalist, Malatesta's biting critiques were frequently short and to the point—and written directly to and for the workers. ... More »

95. Zapata and the Mexican Revolution

By John Womack | Rock-bottom Price: $0.01

This narrative history follows the exploits of Emiliano Zapata, a leader in the Mexican Revolution and inspiration to the Zapatistas. The book explores events preceding the Revolution and examines the political and agrarian reforms that took place. More »

Zapata and the Mexican Revolution
Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976

96. Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976

By Piero Gleijeses

This is a compelling and dramatic account of Cuban policy in Africa from 1959 to 1976 and of its escalating clash with U.S. policy toward the continent. Piero Gleijeses's fast-paced narrative takes the reader from Cuba's first steps to assist Algerian rebels fighting France in 1961, to the ... More »

97. The Rise of the Green Left: Inside the Worldwide Ecosocialist Movement

By Derek Wall | Used Price: 70% Off

Climate change and other ecological ills are driving the creation of a grassroots global movement for change. From Latin America to Europe, Australia and China a militant movement merging red and green is taking shape.Ecosocialists argue that capitalism threatens the future of humanity and the rest of nature. ... More »

The Rise of the Green Left: Inside the Worldwide Ecosocialist Movement
Development of Socialist Economic Thought

98. Development of Socialist Economic Thought

By Maurice Dobb

Maurice Dobb (1900-1976) was a highly influential Marxist political economist and economic historian. He was famous for his writings on economic development - including the development of capitalism in the west, and the dilemmas of the Soviet Union in their efforts to industrialise what had been primarily an ... More »

99. The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World

By G. E. M. de Ste. Croix

The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World from the Archaic Age to the Arab Conquests, published in 1982, is a work of the British classical historian G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, a fellow of New College, Oxford. More »

The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World
Colonial Empires and Armies 1815-1960

100. Colonial Empires and Armies 1815-1960

By Victor Kiernan | Used Price: 70% Off

In this work, V.G. Kiernan explores the European imperial period looking at how wars impacted conquered societies and also the societies that instigated them. More »