100 Best Socialism Books of All Time

We've researched and ranked the best socialism books in the world, based on recommendations from world experts, sales data, and millions of reader ratings. Learn more

Featuring recommendations from Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, Donald J. Trump, and 123 other experts.
1

The Communist Manifesto

"A spectre is haunting Europe," Karl Marx and Frederic Engels wrote in 1848, "the spectre of Communism." This new edition of The Communist Manifesto, commemorating the 150th anniversary of its publication, includes an introduction by renowned historian Eric Hobsbawm which reminds us of the document's continued relevance. Marx and Engels's critique of capitalism and its deleterious effect on all aspects of life, from the increasing rift between the classes to the destruction of the nuclear family, has proven remarkably prescient. Their spectre, manifested in the Manifesto's vivid... more

Peter SingerYes, it is. I chose The Communist Manifesto, rather than, say, Capital because it shows in a much easier-to-read, shorter work something that is central to Marx’s vision. Capital is much drier, and a lot of it is focused on economics, although there are some remarkable passages of Capital describing the conditions of industrial workers in England at the time. (Source)

Felipe Fernández-ArmestoMarx and Engels’s historical analysis is breathtakingly, brilliantly simple. I think it’s wrong but, again, you’ve just got to admire its genius. Obviously, without understanding the historical basis of Marx’s thought you can’t understand anything else in Marxism. (Source)

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2

Animal Farm

Animal Farm is one of the most famous warnings ever written. Orwell's immortal satire - 'against Stalin' as he wrote to his French translator - can be read on many levels. With its piercing clarity and deceptively simple style it is no surprise that this novel is required reading for schoolchildren and politicians alike. This fable of the steadfast horses Boxer and Clover, the opportunistic pigs Snowball and Napoleon, and the deafening choir of sheep remains an unparalleled masterpiece.





One reviewer wrote 'In a hundred years' time perhaps Animal...
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Whitney Cummings[Whitney Cummings recommended this book on the podcast "The Tim Ferriss Show".] (Source)

Vlad TenevWhen I was in sixth grade I remember being very upset by the ending of [this book]. (Source)

Sol OrwellQuestion: What books had the biggest impact on you? Perhaps changed the way you see things or dramatically changed your career path. Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984 (though Huxley's Brave New World is a better reflection of today's society). (Source)

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3

1984

A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick

With extraordinary relevance and renewed popularity, George Orwell’s 1984 takes on new life in this hardcover edition.

“Orwell saw, to his credit, that the act of falsifying reality is only secondarily a way of changing perceptions. It is, above all, a way of asserting power.”—The New Yorker
 
In 1984, London is a grim city in the totalitarian state of Oceania where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind. Winston Smith is a man in grave...
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Richard BransonToday is World Book Day, a wonderful opportunity to address this #ChallengeRichard sent in by Mike Gonzalez of New Jersey: Make a list of your top 65 books to read in a lifetime. (Source)

Steve Jobscalled this book "one of his favorite" and recommended it to the hires. The book also inspired one the greatest TV ad (made by Jobs) (Source)

D J TaylorIn terms of how technology is working in our modern surveillance powers, it’s a terrifyingly prophetic book in some of its implications for 21st-century human life. Orwell would deny that it was prophecy; he said it was a warning. But in fact, distinguished Orwell scholar Professor Peter Davis once made a list of all the things that Orwell got right, and it was a couple of fairly long paragraphs,... (Source)

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4

Socialism

Utopian and Scientific

Socialism, Utopian and Scientific needs no preface. It ranks with the Communist Manifesto as one of the indispensable books for any one desiring to understand the modern socialist movement. It has been translated into every language where capitalism prevails, and its circulation is more rapid than ever before. less

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5

Homage to Catalonia

In 1936 George Orwell travelled to Spain to report on the Civil War and instead joined the fight against the Fascists. This famous account describes the war and Orwell’s own experiences. Introduction by Lionel Trilling. less

Timothy SnyderThe reason why I am so fond of Homage to Catalonia, and see it as an even more relevant precursor to dissent, is that in it you can see a man of the Left learning to make the distinction that breaks down the Left with a big L into lots of little lefts. He comes to understand what Soviet power actually is, and that it is qualitatively different to the other sorts of Spanish left, or to European... (Source)

Ben ShapiroA lot of people have read Orwell's 1984, he actually wrote a book that's better. It's [this book]. (Source)

Timothy Garton AshAnyone who wants to go off and write about Egypt, Tunisia or Libya today should pack a copy of Homage to Catalonia. It’s brilliant reportage. As you know, it opens with a vignette of an Italian militiaman in the barracks in Barcelona and he only saw this guy for a few moments but it captures the excitement. (Source)

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6

State and Revolution

2011 Reprint of 1932 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. "State and Revolution" (1917) describes the role of the State in society, the necessity of proletarian revolution, and the theoretic inadequacies of social democracy in achieving revolution. It describes the inherent nature of the State as a tool for class oppression, a creation born of one social class's desire to control all other social classes. Whether a dictatorship or a democracy, the State remains in the control of the ruling class. Even in a democratic capitalist... more

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7

Capital, Vol. 1

A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production

Capital, one of Marx's major and most influential works, was the product of thirty years close study of the capitalist mode of production in England, the most advanced industrial society of his day. This new translation of Volume One, the only volume to be completed and edited by Marx himself, avoids some of the mistakes that have marred earlier versions and seeks to do justice to the literary qualities of the work. The introduction is by Ernest Mandel, author of Late Capitalism, one of the only comprehensive attempts to develop the theoretical legacy of Capital. less
Recommended by Liam Martin, and 1 others.

Liam MartinMax Weber Protestant Ethic, and Karl Marx's Capital had a huge impact on me. If you read Marx with a critical critique you can see that he's laid out a fantastic framework on how capitalism works, I do disagree with his core premise (capitalism being bad) so I took it as a great way to understand how I could operate inside of a capitalist economy. Weber on the other hand shows you exactly how to... (Source)

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8

The Jungle

For nearly a century, the original version of Upton Sinclair's classic novel has remained almost entirely unknown.

When it was published in serial form in 1905, it was a full third longer than the censored, commercial edition published in book form the following year. That expurgated commercial edition edited out much of the ethnic flavor of the original, as well as some of the goriest descriptions of the meat-packing industry and much of Sinclair's most pointed social and political commentary.

The text of this new edition is as it appeared in the original uncensored...
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Recommended by Louise Gray, and 1 others.

Louise GrayWhen we discuss meat-eating, we talk about the suffering of the animals, we talk about the environment, but we often forget to talk about the people (Source)

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9
After 1989, capitalism has successfully presented itself as the only realistic political-economic system - a situation that the bank crisis of 2008, far from ending, actually compounded. The book analyses the development and principal features of this capitalist realism as a lived ideological framework. Using examples from politics, films, fiction, work and education, it argues that capitalist realism colours all areas of contemporary experience. But it will also show that, because of a number of inconsistencies and glitches internal to the capitalist reality program capitalism in fact is... more

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10
This collection has an active table of contents for readers to access each chapter of each of the following books in the library:

1) Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism
2) The April Theses: The Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution
3) Materialism and Empirio-Criticism
4) The State and Revolution
5) WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

The above works details the complete aspects that Lenin contributed to build the foundation theory based Karl Marx to deliver the first socialistic country Soviets in the world.

Lenin pointed out in the...
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11
In her ground-breaking reporting from Iraq, Naomi Klein exposed how the trauma of invasion was being exploited to remake the country in the interest of foreign corporations. She called it "disaster capitalism." Covering Sri Lanka in the wake of the tsunami, and New Orleans post-Katrina, she witnessed something remarkably similar. People still reeling from catastrophe were being hit again, this time with economic "shock treatment" losing their land and homes to rapid-fire corporate makeovers. The Shock Doctrine retells the story of the most dominant ideology of our time, Milton Friedman's free... more

George MonbiotThe Shock Doctrine explains some of the mechanisms by which patrimonial capital acquires power and enhances its wealth. It’s a brilliant piece of work, and one of those rare books that changes the way you perceive the world. (Source)

Mat WhitecrossIt starts with the theory that moments of crisis have been utilised by the right wing in the US and other countries to manipulate people into following their agenda. (Source)

Donna DickensonNaomi Klein’s argument is that capitalism actually requires deliberately engineered shocks to the economic systems. (Source)

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12

The Conquest of Bread


The fourth in AK Press’ Working Classics series, The Conquest of Bread is Peter Kropotkin’s most extensive study of human needs and his outline of the most rational and equi-table means of satisfying them. A combination of detailed historical analysis and far-reaching utopian vision, this is a step-by-step guide to social revolution: the concrete means of achieving it, and the world that humanity’s “constructive genius” is capable of creating. Includes a new introduction that historically situates and discusses the contemporary relevance of Kropotkin’s ideas.
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13

The Road to Wigan Pier

A searing account of George Orwell’s experiences of working-class life in the bleak industrial heartlands of Yorkshire and Lancashire, The Road to Wigan Pier is a brilliant and bitter polemic that has lost none of its political impact over time. His graphically unforgettable descriptions of social injustice, slum housing, mining conditions, squalor, hunger and growing unemployment are written with unblinking honesty, fury and great humanity. less
Recommended by David Heinemeier Hansson, D J Taylor, and 2 others.

David Heinemeier HanssonIt’s amazing how much of the abusive ideology revealed in his account of the miners is still present in today’s gig economy. (Source)

D J TaylorThe Road to Wigan Pier is a very transitional book. It shows all the attention to detail and the thought of street-level reportage that distinguishes Down and Out in Paris and London, but it’s moving forward to a political position—the political position—that will underlie what Orwell starts writing in the 1940s, for which we now celebrate him. (Source)

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14

Socialism

Past and Future

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.” And they did. Socialism: Past and Future is prominent thinker Michael Harrington’s final contribution: a thoughtful, intelligent, and compassionate treatise on the role of socialism both past and present in modern society. He is convincing in his application of classic socialist theory to current economic situations and modern political systems, and he... more

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15

The Grapes of Wrath

The Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression, a book that galvanized—and sometimes outraged—millions of readers.

First published in 1939, Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads—driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into Haves and Have-Nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic...
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Elizabeth Tsurkov@Maysaloon great book! (Source)

Jonathan EvisonThis is the great American novel for me—the humanity, the landscapes, the progressive and political and social ethos of the novel, not to mention the amazing characters. Steinbeck is the American Dickens, at least in terms of social consciousness. (Source)

John KerryWhile there is a story that takes place between characters, the hardship and unfairness is a central element of the book. It shows how fiction can create progressive change as well. (Source)

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16

Women, Race, and Class

A powerful study of the women's movement in the U.S. from abolitionist days to the present that demonstrates how it has always been hampered by the racist and classist biases of its leaders. less
Recommended by Bianca Belair, and 1 others.

Bianca BelairFor #BlackHistoryMonth  I will be sharing some of my favorite books by Black Authors 3rd Book: Women Race & Class By: Angela Y. Davis EYE-OPENING about the intersection b/w women, race, & class Some Topics: The Abolitionist, Feminist, Women’s Suffrage Movement, etc. https://t.co/RvlOadp7oU (Source)

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17
*This Book is annotated (it contains a detailed biography of the author).
*An active Table of Contents has been added by the publisher for a better customer experience.
*This book has been checked and corrected for spelling errors.

The Soul of Man under Socialism is an 1891 essay by Oscar Wilde in which he expounds a libertarian socialist worldview and a critique of charity. The writing of The Soul of Man followed Wilde's conversion to anarchist philosophy, following his reading of the works of Peter Kropotkin.
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Recommended by Sos Eltis, and 1 others.

Sos EltisIntellectually, the brand of socialism that he propounded in The Soul of Man under Socialism is a fantastically ideal one (Source)

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18
A "razor-sharp" introduction to this political and economic ideology makes a galvanizing argument for modern socialism (Naomi Klein) -- and explains how its core tenets could effect positive change in America and worldwide.
In The Socialist Manifesto, Bhaskar Sunkara explores socialism's history since the mid-1800s and presents a realistic vision for its future. With the stunning popularity of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Americans are embracing the class politics of socialism. But what, exactly, is socialism? And what would a socialist system in America...
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Recommended by Aaron Bastani, Waleed Shahid, and 2 others.

Aaron Bastani@eleanorkpenny @sunraysunray Bhaskar’s book is excellent but I think you’ll really enjoy the beginning! (Source)

Waleed Shahid@zackbeauchamp I think you'd enjoy this book and the way it grapples with questions around socialism, social democracy and liberalism. https://t.co/6TzNhhMSL2 (Source)

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19

On Anarchism

We all know what Noam Chomsky is against. His scathing analysis of everything that’s wrong with our society reaches more and more people every day. His brilliant critiques of—among other things—capitalism, imperialism, domestic repression and government propaganda have become mini-publishing industries unto themselves. But, in this flood of publishing and republishing, very little ever gets said about what exactly Chomsky stands for, his own personal politics, his vision of the future.

Not, that is, until Chomsky on Anarchism, a groundbreaking new book that shows a different...
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20

The Dispossessed

Shevek, a brilliant physicist, decides to take action. He will seek answers, question the unquestionable, and attempt to tear down the walls of hatred that have isolated his planet of anarchists from the rest of the civilized universe. To do this dangerous task will mean giving up his family and possibly his life—Shevek must make the unprecedented journey to the utopian mother planet, Urras, to challenge the complex structures of life and living, and ignite the fires of change. less
Recommended by Nicholas Whyte, and 1 others.

Nicholas WhyteThe hero of The Dispossessed grows up on a planet which is one of two twin planets in a solar system far away from here. The planet where the hero grows up is essentially a communist-socialist utopia, and the twin planet that they see every day and every night hanging in the sky is a more capitalist society, much more similar to our western society. (Source)

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21
“During the first two months of 1917 Russia was still a Romanov monarchy. Eight months later the Bolsheviks stood at the helm. They were little known to anybody when the year began, and their leaders were still under indictment for state treason when they came to power. You will not find another such sharp turn in history especially if you remember that it involves a nation of 150 million people. It is clear that the events of 1917, whatever you think of them, deserve study.”
--Leon Trotsky, from History of the Russian Revolution

Regarded by many as among the most powerful...
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Recommended by Roland Chambers, and 1 others.

Roland ChambersI chose this book because almost everything that people read about the Russian revolution is written by Westerners, partly because the official histories written under Stalin were incredibly boring and predictable. That all changed when the archives opened up after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but there’s a gap all the same, which Trotsky tried to fill. (Source)

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22

Capital in the Twenty-First Century

What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories. In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty analyzes a unique collection of data from twenty countries, ranging as far back as the eighteenth century, to uncover key economic and social patterns. His findings will transform debate... more

Bill GatesCapital sparked a fantastic global discussion this year about inequality. Piketty kindly spent an hour discussing his work with me before I finished my review. As I told him, although I have concerns about some of his secondary points and policy prescriptions, I agree with his most important conclusions: inequality is a growing problem and that governments should play a role in reducing it. I... (Source)

David Heinemeier HanssonThis is the book that was catapulted by its conclusion: r > g. That the rate of return on capital is greater than the growth rate of the economy. Which means that capital, and the people who own it, will end up with a larger and larger share of all wealth and income in the economy as time goes on. It’s a dense dive into the historical data on wealth, income, and economic growth from the optic of... (Source)

George MonbiotPiketty explains the economic crisis that we face in ways that also explain the political crisis. He does this by talking about the rise of what he calls ‘patrimonial capital’: wealth arising from inheritance, rent, and interest payments which greatly outweighs any wealth arising from hard work and enterprise. (Source)

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23

Atlas Shrugged

This is the story of a man who said that he would stop the motor of the world and did. Was he a destroyer or the greatest of liberators?

Why did he have to fight his battle, not against his enemies, but against those who needed him most, and his hardest battle against the woman he loved? What is the world’s motor — and the motive power of every man? You will know the answer to these questions when you discover the reason behind the baffling events that play havoc with the lives of the characters in this story.

Tremendous in its scope, this novel presents an...
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Recommended by Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Ev Williams, and 17 others.

Steve Jobsis said by his Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak, to have regarded Atlas Shrugged as one of his “guides in life”. (Source)

Elon MuskA counterpoint to communism and useful as such, but should be tempered with kindness. (Source)

Travis Kalanick[Travis Kalanick mentioned this book in a Washington Post interview.] (Source)

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24

Reform or Revolution

Why capitalism cannot overcome its internal contradictions and the working class cannot "reform" away exploitation and economic crises. less

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25
"A wonderful, splendid book--a book that should be ready by every American, student or otherwise, who wants to understand his country, its true history, and its hope for the future." --Howard Fast

With a new introduction by Anthony Arnove, this edition of the classic national bestseller chronicles American history from the bottom up, throwing out the official narrative taught in schools—with its emphasis on great men in high places—to focus on the street, the home and the workplace.

Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research,...
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Recommended by Lisa Ling, Alex Honnold, and 2 others.

Lisa LingI credit this book with propelling me to dig deeper, and to not always believe the narrative. (Source)

Alex HonnoldTotally changed the way I look at politics. (Source)

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27

The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State

How the emergence of class-divided society gave rise to repressive state bodies and family structures that protect the property of the ruling layers and enable them to pass along wealth and privilege. Engels discusses the consequences for working people of these class institutions from their original forms to their modern versions.
Also available in French & Spanish.
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28

The Revolution Betrayed

One of Marxism's most important texts, The Revolution Betrayed explores the fate of the Russian Revolution after Lenin's death. Written in 1936 and published the following year, this brilliant and profound evaluation of Stalinism from the Marxist standpoint prophesied the collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequent related events.
The effects of the October Revolution led to the establishment of a nationalized planned economy, demonstrating the practicality of socialism for the first time. By the 1930s, however, the Soviet workers' democracy had crumbled into a state of...
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29

Red Rosa

A Graphic Biography of Rosa Luxemburg

Rosa tells the life story of philosopher, economist, publisher, writer, organizer, political leader and martyr Rosa Luxemburg in full-color, graphic form. The story follows Rosa from her family life in Jewish Poland—where she became the leader of a general strike at age fifteen and was exiled from her homeland at eighteen—to her immersion into the then largest radical party in the world, the German Social Democratic Party, to her founding of the German Communist Party and leadership of the German revolution of 1919.

This beautifully drawn graphic life gives “Red Rosa” her due as an...
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30
This unusual fictional memoir - in good part autobiographical - narrates without self-pity and often with humor the adventures of a penniless British writer among the down-and-outs of two great cities. The Parisian episode is fascinating for its expose of the kitchens of posh French restaurants, where the narrator works at the bottom of the culinary echelon as dishwasher, or plongeur. In London, while waiting for a job, he experiences the world of tramps, street people, and free lodging houses. In the tales of both cities we learn some sobering Orwellian truths about poverty and of society. less

David DownieThat is a book I read when I was young – in my teens – and it really marked me. (Source)

Roman KrznaricOrwell is one of my great empathic heroes. He went tramping in east London, trying to empathise with people who lived on the social margins. (Source)

David KramaleyI really enjoyed Down and Out in Paris and London. I think it’s meant to be a semi-autobiographical novel by George Orwell. I liked it because it was one of those books that had a big influence on the way I perceive and think about the world. Highly recommended. (Source)

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31
Opinion polls show that many people in the U.S. prefer socialism to capitalism. But after being declared dead and buried for decades, socialism has come to mean little more than something vaguely less cruel and stupid than what we have now. That's not exactly going to inspire millions to storm the barricades.

Danny Katch brings together the two great Marxist traditions of Karl and Groucho to provide an entertaining and insightful introduction to what the socialist tradition has to say about democracy, economics and the potential of human beings to be something more than being...
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32

The Condition of the Working Class in England

The Condition of the Working Class is the best-known work of Engels, and in many ways still the best study of the working class in Victorian England. It was also Engels's first book, written during his stay in Manchester from 1842 to 1844. Manchester was then at the very heart of the Industrial Revolution and Engels compiled his study from his own observations and detailed contemporary reports. The fluency of his writing, the personal nature of his insights, and his talent for mordant satire combine to make this account of the life of the victims of early industrial change into a classic - a... more

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33

The Wretched of the Earth

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 is now available in a new translation that updates its language for a new generation of readers.

The Wretched of the Earth is a brilliant analysis of the psychology of the colonized and their path to liberation. Bearing singular...
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34

Das Kapital

Das Kapital, Karl Marx's seminal work, is the book that above all others formed the twentieth century. From Kapital sprung the economic and political systems that at one time dominated half the earth and for nearly a century kept the world on the brink of war. Even today, more than one billion Chinese citizens live under a regime that proclaims fealty to Marxist ideology. Yet this important tome has been passed over by many readers frustrated by Marx’s difficult style and his preoccupation with nineteenth-century events of little relevance to today's reader.

Here...
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Recommended by Elon Musk, and 1 others.

Elon MuskRead [this book] when I was 14. (Source)

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35
An unimpeachable classic work in political philosophy, intellectual and cultural history, and economics, The Road to Serfdom has inspired and infuriated politicians, scholars, and general readers for half a century. Originally published in 1944—when Eleanor Roosevelt supported the efforts of Stalin, and Albert Einstein subscribed lock, stock, and barrel to the socialist program—The Road to Serfdom was seen as heretical for its passionate warning against the dangers of state control over the means of production. For F. A. Hayek, the collectivist idea of empowering government with... more

Geoffrey Miller@bdmarotta No, The Road to Serfdom by Hayek is the best book on modern evil (Source)

Yuval LevinThe Road to Serfdom is a very polemical book. It was published in 1944. It’s a warning not exactly about Communism, but about the coming of statism in the West, about the ways that some of the governing élites that Hayek saw, especially in Britain, thought about governing. The book is really mostly about Britain. He talks about the dangers of central planning, of the attempt to take over the... (Source)

Mitch DanielsThis book convincingly demonstrated what was already intuitive to me: namely, the utter futility, the illusion of government planning as a mechanism for uplifting those less fortunate. (Source)

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36
A short, sharp, irreverent rejoinder to right-wing red-baiting

During the Cold War it became a dirty word in the United States, but “socialism” runs like a red thread through the nation’s history, an integral part of its political consciousness since the founding of the republic. In this unapologetic corrective to today’s collective amnesia, John Nichols calls for the proud return of socialism in American life. He recalls the reforms lauded by Founding Father Tom Paine; the presence of Karl Marx’s journalism in American letters; the left leanings of founders of the...
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37

Che Guevara

A Revolutionary Life

"Acclaimed around the world and a national best-seller, this is the definitive work on Che Guevara, the dashing rebel whose epic dream was to end poverty and injustice in Latin America and the developing world through armed revelation. Jon Lee Anderson's biography traces Che's extraordinary life, from his comfortable Argentine upbringing to the battlefields of the Cuban revolution, from the halls of power in Castro's government to his failed campaign in the Congo and assassination in the Bolivian Jungle.

Anderson has had unprecedented access to the personal archives maintained by...
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38

Black Liberation and Socialism

A sharp and insightful analysis of historic movements against racism in the United States—from the separatism of Marcus Garvey, to the militancy of Malcolm X and the Black Panther Party, to the eloquence of Martin Luther King Jr. and much more—with essential lessons for today’s struggles.

In the 40 years since the civil rights movement, many gains have been made—but there is still far to go to win genuine change. Here is a badly needed primer on the history and future of the struggle against racism.

Ahmed Shawki is the editor of the International Socialist...
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39
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 battle against the rebel body and the conflict between body and mind are essential conditions for the development of labor power and self-ownership, two central principles of modern social organization. less

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40

Why Marx Was Right

In this combative, controversial book, Terry Eagleton takes issue with the prejudice that Marxism is dead and done with. Taking ten of the most common objections to Marxism—that it leads to political tyranny, that it reduces everything to the economic, that it is a form of historical determinism, and so on—he demonstrates in each case what a woeful travesty of Marx's own thought these assumptions are. In a world in which capitalism has been shaken to its roots by some major crises, Why Marx Was Right is as urgent and timely as it is brave and candid. Written with Eagleton's familiar... more

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41
2013 Reprint of 1929 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. In "What Is to Be Done?," Lenin argues that the working class will not spontaneously become political simply by fighting economic battles with employers over wages, working hours and the like. To convert the working class to Marxism, Lenin insists that Marxists should form a political party, or "vanguard," of dedicated revolutionaries to spread Marxist political ideas among the workers. The pamphlet partly precipitated the split of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party... more

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43

Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy

Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy remains one of the greatest works of social theory written this century. When it first appeared the New English Weekly predicted that 'for the next five to ten years it will cetainly remain a work with which no one who professes any degree of information on sociology or economics can afford to be unacquainted.' Fifty years on, this prediction seems a little understated.

Why has the work endured so well? Schumpeter's contention that the seeds of capitalism's decline were internal, and his equal and opposite hostility to...
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44

The Society of the Spectacle

Few works of political and cultural theory have been as enduringly provocative as Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle. From its publication amid the social upheavals of the 1960s up to the present, the volatile theses of this book have decisively transformed debates on the shape of modernity, capitalism and everyday life in the late twentieth century. Now finally available in a superb English translation approved by the author, Debord's text remains as crucial as ever for understanding the contemporary effects of power, which are increasingly inseparable from the new virtual...

more
Recommended by Sanja Zepan, Dave Elitch, and 2 others.

Sanja ZepanThe most dramatic change was definitely when I read Guy Debord's The Society of Spectacle in high school. That book made me go study communicology and media, instead of everything else I wanted to study back then. It really cemented my university application. (Source)

Dave Elitch[Dave Elitch recommended this book on the podcast "The Tim Ferriss Show".] (Source)

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45
Americans call the Second World War “The Good War.” But before it even began, America’s wartime ally Josef Stalin had killed millions of his own citizens—and kept killing them during and after the war. Before Hitler was finally defeated, he had murdered six million Jews and nearly as many other Europeans. At war’s end, both the German and the Soviet killing sites fell behind the iron curtain, leaving the history of mass killing in darkness.
Bloodlands is a new kind of European history, presenting the mass murders committed by the Nazi and Stalinist regimes as two aspects of a single...
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Eric Weinstein[Eric Weinstein recommended this book on Twitter.] (Source)

Antony BeevorThis book is about…the Stalinist repression of the areas known as the borderlands, which Snyder has termed the bloodlands. Snyder is looking at the deliberate mass murder of civilians in a particular zone of Europe between about 1930, at the start of the second Ukraine famine, and 1945. (Source)

Edward LucasBloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin offers the best account of the most important and terrible years of the last century, when Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler jointly consigned the territories and people between their two empires to the meat-grinder. (Source)

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46

A Companion to Marx's Capital

“My aim is to get you to read a book by Karl Marx called Capital, Volume 1, and to read it on Marx’s own terms…”

The biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression has generated a surge of interest in Marx’s work in the effort to understand the origins of our current predicament. For nearly forty years, David Harvey has written and lectured on Capital, becoming one of the world’s most foremost Marx scholars.

Based on his recent lectures, this current volume aims to bring this depth of learning to a broader audience, guiding first-time readers through a...
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47
From philosopher Leszek Kolakowski, one of the giants of twentieth-century intellectual history, comes this highly infuential study of Marxism. Written in exile, this 'prophetic work' presents, according to the Library of Congress, 'the most lucid and comprehensive history of the origins, structure, and posthumous development of the system of thought that had the greatest impact on the twentieth century'. Kolakowski traces the intellectual foundations of Marxist thought from Plotonius through Lenin, Lukacs, Sartre and Mao. He reveals Marxism to be 'the greatest fantasy of our century ...an... more

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48

The Iron Heel

A dystopian novel about the terrible oppressions of an American oligarchy at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, and the struggles of a socialist revolutionary movement. less
Recommended by Chan Koonchung, and 1 others.

Chan KoonchungMany dystopian novels are cautionary tales. I’m sure the authors have that in mind when they write – it’s a warning to their contemporaries. (Source)

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49
Forget everything you think you know about global warming. It's not about carbon – it's about capitalism. The good news is that we can seize this crisis to transform our failed economic system and build something radically better.

In her most provocative book yet, Naomi Klein, author of the global bestsellers The Shock Doctrine and No Logo, exposes the myths that are clouding climate debate.

You have been told the market will save us, when in fact the addiction to profit and growth is digging us in deeper every day. You have been told it's impossible to get off fossil...
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50

Ten Days that Shook the World



Ten Days That Shook the World is John Reed’s eyewitness account of the Russian Revolution. A contemporary journalist writing in the first flush of revolutionary enthusiasm, he gives a gripping record of the events in Petrograd in November 1917, when Lenin and the Bolsheviks finally seized power. Containing verbatim reports both of speeches by leaders and the chance comments of bystanders, set against an idealized backcloth of the proletariat, soldiers, sailors, and peasants uniting to throw off oppression, Reed’s account is the product of passionate...
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Recommended by Martin Sixsmith, and 1 others.

Martin SixsmithI like John Reed because he’s a journalist like myself, like yourself, and he was on hand to paint this fantastic, vivid picture of 1917. As you know, Warren Beatty turned it into that movie Reds in the 1980s that made revolution fun, sexy and exciting. John Reed debunks the great Soviet myth that October was a huge heroic struggle by the masses. He said: No, it wasn’t like that. The Winter... (Source)

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51
A spirited, deeply researched exploration of why capitalism is bad for women and how, when done right, socialism leads to economic independence, better labor conditions, better work-life balance and, yes, even better sex.
In a witty, irreverent op-ed piece that went viral, Kristen Ghodsee argued that women had better sex under socialism. The response was tremendous -- clearly she articulated something many women had sensed for years: the problem is with capitalism, not with us.

Ghodsee, an acclaimed ethnographer and professor of Russian and East European...
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52
"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 collapse. I also want to show why this economic engine should be replaced, and with what." --from the Introduction
To modern Western society, capitalism is the air we breathe, and most people rarely think to question it, for good or for ill. But knowing what makes capitalism work--and what makes it fail--is crucial to understanding...
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53
An exhilarating exploration into the utopias and dystopias that could develop from present society

Peter Frase argues that increasing automation and a growing scarcity of resources, thanks to climate change, will bring it all tumbling down. In Four Futures, Frase imagines how this post-capitalist world might look, deploying the tools of both social science and speculative fiction to explore what communism, rentism, socialism and exterminism might actually entail.

Could the current rise of real-life robocops usher in a world that resembles Ender’s...
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54
The text of "Wage-Labour and Capital" came from lectures Marx delivered to the German Workmen's Club of Brussels in 1847, a time of great political upheaval. The relation between wage-labour to capital is a core concept in Marx's analysis of political economy. This book is an essential, a foundation to understanding the development of Marxist theory. "Price. Value and Profit" was written in 1865. The different parts, as in the title decomposes into 'surplus value' (the essential economic building block in Marism). This book, again, is basic to understanding the development of Marist theory. A... more

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55

Selections from the Prison Notebooks

An extensive anthology, including his most important writings while in prison on philosophy, history, Communist Party formation, the intellectuals, and other subjects. less

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56

From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation

Recommended by Ro Khanna, and 1 others.

Ro Khanna.⁦@KeeangaYamahtta⁩ is one of the leading scholars in our nation. Her book on redlining and predatory inclusion is a must read. She captures the broad coalition behind ⁦@SenSanders⁩ campaign. https://t.co/jZU4Uvxpjp (Source)

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57
In 1789 the West Indian colony of San Domingo supplied two-thirds of the overseas trade of France. The entire structure of what was arguably the most profitable colony in the world rested on the labour of half a million slaves. In 1791 the waves of unrest inspired by the French Revolution reached across the Atlantic dividing the loyalties of the white population of the island. The brutally treated slaves of Saint Domingo seized at this confusion and rose up in rebellion against masters. In thisclassic work, CLR James chronicles the only successful slave revolt in history and provides a... more

Ben HorowitzA management and cultural genius better than anybody that I’ve ever read about or learned from. (Source)

Christian WisskirchenThe book highlights the achievement of the Haitian nation to be the only ever slave revolution achieving independence by armed struggle. (Source)

Trevor PhillipsThis book is very complex because it does not make the rebellion’s leader, Toussaint L’Ouverture, into a sort of plaster saint. (Source)

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58
First published in Portuguese in 1968, Pedagogy of the Oppressed was translated and published in English in 1970. Paulo Freire's work has helped to empower countless people throughout the world and has taken on special urgency in the United States and Western Europe, where the creation of a permanent underclass among the underprivileged and minorities in cities and urban centers is ongoing.

This 50th anniversary edition includes an updated introduction by Donaldo Macedo, a new afterword by Ira Shor and interviews with Marina Aparicio Barberan, Noam Chomsky, Ramon Flecha,...
more
Recommended by Alexis Isabel, and 1 others.

Alexis Isabel@dontkauf i’ve read it! great book, def worth a re-read (Source)

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59

Understanding Power

The Indispensable Chomsky

A major new collection from "arguably the most important intellectual alive" (The New York Times). Noam Chomsky is universally accepted as one of the preeminent public intellectuals of the modern era. Over the past thirty years, broadly diverse audiences have gathered to attend his sold-out lectures. Now, in Understanding Power, Peter Mitchell and John Schoeffel have assembled the best of Chomsky's recent talks on the past, present, and future of the politics of power. In a series of enlightening and wide-ranging discussions, all published here for the first time, Chomsky... more

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60

The Accumulation of Capital

Rosa Luxemburg was a revolutionary socialist who fought and died for her beliefs. In January 1919, after being arrested for her involvement in a workers' uprising in Berlin, she was brutally murdered by a group of right-wing soldiers. Her body was recovered days later from a canal. Six years earlier she had published what was undoubtedly her finest achievement, The Accumulation of Capital - a book which remains one of the masterpieces of socialist literature. Taking Marx as her starting point, she offers an independent and fiercely critical explanation of the economic and political... more

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61
The author of the number-one New York Times bestseller The Russia Hoax picks up where that book ended with this hard-hitting, well-reasoned examination of the latest findings about “collusion” between the Trump Administration and the Russians, offering further proof that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation is nothing more than a politically motivated witch hunt.

The president’s enemies cite the number of indictments and guilty pleas wracked up by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his associates as proof of Donald Trump and his...
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Mark R. LevinGrab a copy of Gregg Jarrett’s great new book. Witch Hunt: The Story of the Greatest Mass Delusion in American Political History https://t.co/e9bec42r6J (Source)

Jerome R. CorsiThank you Gregg Jarrett @GreggJarrett for the excellent coverage he gave my 40-hrs inquisition by Mueller in which I refused a plea deal & did NOT get indicted (pgs 380-386) in his new book https://t.co/E4INijaAca WITCH HUNT that I strongly recommend @realDonaldTrump A MUST READ (Source)

Kimberly GuilfoyleGet @GreggJarrett’s new book Witch Hunt! The story of the greatest mass delusion in American political history. Phenomenal writer and storyteller with another great book! https://t.co/oJ7n2jRQEx (Source)

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62
Blackshirts & Reds explores some of the big issues of our time: fascism, capitalism, communism, revolution, democracy, and ecology—terms often bandied about but seldom explored in the original and exciting way that has become Michael Parenti’s trademark.

Parenti shows how “rational fascism” renders service to capitalism, how corporate power undermines democracy, and how revolutions are a mass empowerment against the forces of exploitative privilege. He also maps out the external and internal forces that destroyed communism, and the disastrous impact of the “free-market”...
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63

The ABCs of Socialism

Slim, accessible, inexpensive, irreverent introduction to socialism by the writers of "Jacobin" magazine
The remarkable run of self-proclaimed democratic socialist Bernie Sanders for president of the United States has prompted for the first time in decades and to the shock of many a national conversation about socialism. A "New York Times" poll in late November found that a majority of Democrats had a favorable view of socialism, and in New Hampshire in February, more than half of Democratic voters under 35 told the Boston Globe they call themselves socialists. It s unclear exactly what...
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64

Socialism

An Economic and Sociological Analysis

This book must rank as the most devastating analysis of socialism yet penned. . . . An economic classic in our time.

—Henry Hazlitt

More than thirty years ago F. A. Hayek said of Socialism: "It was a work on political economy in the tradition of the great moral philosophers, a Montesquieu or Adam Smith, containing both acute knowledge and profound wisdom. . . . To none of us young men who read the book when it appeared was the world ever the same again."

This is a newly annotated edition of the classic first published in German in...
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65
A recent poll showed 43% of Americans think more socialism would be a good thing. What do these people not know?

Socialism has killed millions, but it’s now the ideology du jour on American college campuses and among many leftists. Reintroduced by leaders such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the ideology manifests itself in starry-eyed calls for free-spending policies like Medicare-for-all and student loan forgiveness.

In The Case Against Socialism, Rand Paul outlines the history of socialism, from Stalin’s gulags to...
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Donald J. TrumpSenator Rand Paul just wrote a great book, “The Case Against Socialism” which is now out. Highly recommended – as America was founded on LIBERTY & INDEPENDENCE – not government coercion, domination & control. We were born free, and will stay free, as long as I am your President! (Source)

Cliff MaloneySpent time in NYC with the great @KelleyAshbyPaul and @RandPaul discussing their new book: “THE CASE AGAINST SOCIALISM” A great read for Americans interested in how incentives and markets actually work #MakeLibertyWin @YALiberty https://t.co/Kl4dGei4jQ (Source)

Kimberly GuilfoyleCongrats to @randpaul on his fantastic new book THE CASE AGAINST SOCIALISM! Worth a read if you want to defeat this radical ideology. Get your copy now: https://t.co/YXGgSO84i1 https://t.co/jxeE9IGI4N (Source)

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66

Utopia

Utopia (Libellus vere aureus, nec minus salutaris quam festivus, de optimo rei publicae statu deque nova insula Utopia) is a satirical work of fiction and political philosophy by Thomas More (1478–1535) published in 1516 in Latin. The book is a frame narrative primarily depicting a fictional island society as described by the character Raphael Hythloday who lived there some years, who describes and its religious, social and political customs. less
Recommended by Ellen Wayland-Smith, and 1 others.

Ellen Wayland-SmithMore was building on older ideas about an earlier age, an Edenic state, when private property didn’t exist. (Source)

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67

The Fatal Conceit

The Errors of Socialism

Hayek gives the main arguments for the free-market case and presents his manifesto on the "errors of socialism." Hayek argues that socialism has, from its origins, been mistaken on factual, and even on logical, grounds and that its repeated failures in the many different practical applications of socialist ideas that this century has witnessed were the direct outcome of these errors. He labels as the "fatal conceit" the idea that "man is able to shape the world around him according to his wishes."

"The achievement of The Fatal Conceit is that it freshly shows why socialism...
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68

Mutual Aid

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 understanding of human evolution as well as social organization, it offers a powerful counterpoint to the tenets of Social Darwinism. It also cites persuasive evidence of human nature's innate compatibility with anarchist society.
"Kropotkin's basic...
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69
Read the book that President Donald Trump called “a great book for your reading enjoyment!”

The most exhaustively researched and coherently argued Democrat Party apologia to date, Reasons to Vote for Democrats: A Comprehensive Guide is a political treatise sure to stand the test of time. A must-have addition to any political observer's coffee table.

*** Lefty lawyers require that we state the book is mostly blank and contains precisely 1,235 words.
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70
In this classic work of economic history and social theory, Karl Polanyi analyzes the economic and social changes brought about by the "great transformation" of the Industrial Revolution. His analysis explains not only the deficiencies of the self-regulating market, but the potentially dire social consequences of untempered market capitalism. New introductory material reveals the renewed importance of Polanyi's seminal analysis in an era of globalization and free trade. less

Satya Nadella"My father recommended this book long ago,” says Nadella of the 1944 classic by a Hungarian-American writer who chronicles the development of England’s market economy and argues that society should drive economic change. (Source)

Mark BlythA story which stretches from 1815 to 1914. He says it was 100 years of peace, although that’s not actually true because if you were a colonial subject it was hardly peaceful. (Source)

Dani RodrikIt makes a rather important point, that the economy has always been embedded in society, and when we try to disembed it from society and treat it like an independent institution, then we’re really going to run into trouble. (Source)

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71
The creators of the cult-hit podcast Chapo Trap House deliver a manifesto for everyone who feels orphaned and alienated—politically, culturally, and economically—by the bloodless Wall Street centrism of the Democrats and the lizard-brained atavism of the right: there is a better way, the Chapo Way.

In a manifesto that renders all previous attempts at political satire obsolete, The Chapo Guide to Revolution shows you that you don’t have to side with either the pear-shaped vampires of the right or the craven, lanyard-wearing wonks of contemporary liberalism....
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72

Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

Communism as a political movement attained global importance after the Bolsheviks toppled the Russian Czar in 1917. After that time the works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, especially the influential Communist Manifesto (1848), enjoyed an international audience. The world was to learn a new political vocabulary peppered with "socialism", "capitalism", "the working class", "the bourgeoisie", "labour theory of value", "alienation", "economic determinism", "dialectical materialism", and "historical materialism". Marx's economic analysis of history has been a powerful legacy, the effects of... more

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74
Latin America’s experiments in direct democracy

Since 2011, a wave of popular uprisings has swept the globe, taking shape in the Occupy movement, the Arab Spring, 15M in Spain, and the anti-austerity protests in Greece. The demands have been varied, but have expressed a consistent commitment to the ideals of radical democracy.

Similar experiments began appearing across Latin America twenty-five years ago, just as the left fell into decline in Europe. In Venezuela, poor barrio residents arose in a mass rebellion against neoliberalism, ushering in a government that...
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75

Since its U.S. debut a quarter-century ago, this brilliant text has set a new standard for historical scholarship of Latin America. It is also an outstanding political economy, a social and cultural narrative of the highest quality, and perhaps the finest description of primitive capital accumulation since Marx.

Rather than chronology, geography, or political successions, Eduardo Galeano has organized the various facets of Latin American history according to the patterns of five centuries of exploitation. Thus he is concerned with gold and silver, cacao and cotton, rubber and coffee,...

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76
Today, most people think of socialism as an outdated ideology. In this Very Short Introduction, Michael Newman seeks to place the idea of socialism in a modern context for today's readers. He explains socialist ideas in the framework of its historical evolution, from the French Revolution to the present day, and examines practical attempts to implement socialism.

Not just another history of socialist ideas, this book aims for a different approach that looks at practice as well as theory--centering on the contrast between Communism and Social Democracy. The relationship between...
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77
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. less

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78
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. less

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79

Why Not Socialism?

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 are times, G. A. Cohen notes, when we all behave like socialists. On a camping trip, for example, campers wouldn't dream of charging each other to use a soccer ball or for fish that they happened to catch. Campers do not give merely to get, but relate to each other in a spirit of equality and community. Would such socialist norms...
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80
Why fascism was able to conquer only in those countries where social democratic or Stalinist parties blocked the workers and their allies from utilizing a revolutionary situation to remove the capitalists from power. less

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81

Capital, Vol. 2

The Process of Circulation of Capital

The "forgotten" second volume of Capital, Marx's world-shaking analysis of economics, politics, and history, contains the vital discussion of commodity, the cornerstone to Marx's theories. less

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82

The Problem with Socialism

"DiLorenzo's book is a pleasure to read and should be put in the hands of every young person in this country - and elsewhere!"  —FORMER CONGRESSMAN RON PAUL

"It is a worthwhile investment for parents with college-age children to buy two copies of The Problem with Socialism -one for their children and one for themselves." —WALTER E. WILLIAMS, John M Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics, George Mason University and nationally syndicated columnist

"Ever wonder what one book you should give a young person to make sure he...
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83
Unrivalled in scope and brimming with human drama, A People’s Tragedy is the most vivid, moving and comprehensive history of the Russian Revolution available today.

‘A modern masterpiece’ Andrew Marr

‘The most moving account of the Russian Revolution since Doctor ZhivagoIndependent

Opening with a panorama of Russian society, from the cloistered world of the Tsar to the brutal life of the peasants, A People’s Tragedy follows workers, soldiers, intellectuals and villagers as their world is consumed by revolution and then...
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Recommended by Thomas Keneally, Roland Chambers, and 2 others.

Thomas KeneallyWell, I’ve chosen this because, from what I remember, it’s the book I most admired while I was writing about Russia because it gives the tremendous overall sweep of the entire catastrophe up to the end of the civil war in 1922 and the famine. Figes has the capacity to focus on people you’ve never heard of and show them as representatives of ideologies competing for control of the Russian state,... (Source)

Roland ChambersA People’s Tragedy is the most readable and illuminating history of the Russian revolution to be written, using material that only became available to historians following the Soviet Union’s collapse. (Source)

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84

Anarcho-Syndicalism

Theory and Practice

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, and an outline of the syndicalist strategies and tactics embraced at the time (direct action, sabotage and the general strike). Includes a lengthy introduction by Nicholas Walter and a Preface by Noam Chomsky.

“[Rocker’s] approach is far from ‘utopian’; this is not...
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85

Profit Over People

Neoliberalism and Global Order

In "Profit Over People," Noam Chomsky takes on neoliberalism: the pro-corporate system of economic and political policies presently waging a form of class war worldwide. By examining the contradictions between the democratic and market principles proclaimed by those in power and those actually practiced, Chomsky critiques the tyranny of the few that restricts the public arena and enacts policies that vastly increase private wealth, often with complete disregard for social and ecological consequences. Combining detailed historical examples and uncompromising criticism, Chomsky offers a... more

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86

Germinal

The thirteenth novel in Émile Zola’s great Rougon-Macquart sequence, Germinal expresses outrage at the exploitation of the many by the few, but also shows humanity’s capacity for compassion and hope.

Etienne Lantier, an unemployed railway worker, is a clever but uneducated young man with a dangerous temper. Forced to take a back-breaking job at Le Voreux mine when he cannot get other work, he discovers that his fellow miners are ill, hungry, in debt, and unable to feed and clothe their families. When conditions in the mining community deteriorate even further, Lantier finds himself...
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87

Marx for Beginners

A cartoon book about Marx? Are you sure it's Karl, not Groucho? How can you summarize the work of Karl Marx in cartoons? It took Rius to do it. He's put it all in: the origins of Marxist philosophy, history, economics; of capital, labor, the class struggle, socialism. And there's a biography of "Charlie" Marx besides.

Like the companion volumes in the series, Marx for Beginners is accurate, understandable, and very, very funny.
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88
Volume 1 of the gripping epic masterpiece, Solzhenitsyn's chilling report of his arrest and interrogation, which exposed to the world the vast bureaucracy of secret police that haunted Soviet society less

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89

Utopia for Realists

And How We Can Get There

We live in a time of unprecedented upheaval, with questions about the future, society, work, happiness, family and money, and yet no political party of the right or left is providing us with answers. Rutger Bregman, a bestselling Dutch historian, explains that it needn't be this way.

Bregman shows that we can construct a society with visionary ideas that are, in fact, wholly implementable. Every milestone of civilization – from the end of slavery to the beginning of democracy – was once considered a utopian fantasy. New utopian ideas such as universal basic income and a 15-hour...
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Recommended by Duan Pavlovi, and 1 others.

Duan PavloviThank you @rcbregman for this great book! (I am writing a short review, but only in Serbian for a Serbian daily.) (Source)

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91

The Motorcycle Diaries

Notes on a Latin American Journey

The young Che Guevara’s lively and highly entertaining travel diary, now a popular movie and a New York Times bestseller.

This new, expanded edition features exclusive, unpublished photos taken by the 23-year-old Ernesto on his journey across a continent, and a tender preface by Aleida Guevara, offering an insightful perspective on the man and the icon.

Features of this edition include:

A preface by Che Guevara’s daughter Aleida
Introduction by Cintio Vintier, well-known Latin American poet
Photos & maps from the original journey
Postcript:...
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92

To the Finland Station

From the ideas of early 19th-century socialists to the thoughts of Marx, Engels, Lenin & Trotsky, Edmund Wilson traces the development of the political & intellectual movements that culminated in the Russian Revolution. TO THE FINLAND STATION is a work of history on a grand scale, at once sweeping, detailed, closely reasoned & passionately argued, that succeeds in painting an unforgettable picture--alive with conspirators, philosophers, utopians & nihilists--of the making of the modern world.
'The 1st thing that strikes us about To the Finland Station is the vastness of...
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93

Gulag

A History

The Gulag--a vast array of Soviet concentration camps that held millions of political and criminal prisoners--was a system of repression and punishment that terrorized the entire society, embodying the worst tendencies of Soviet communism. In this magisterial and acclaimed history, Anne Applebaum offers the first fully documented portrait of the Gulag, from its origins in the Russian Revolution, through its expansion under Stalin, to its collapse in the era of glasnost. Applebaum intimately re-creates what life was like in the camps and links them to the larger history of the Soviet Union.... more
Recommended by Edward Lucas, and 2 others.

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94
In the long-awaited follow-up to her Pulitzer Prize-winning Gulag, acclaimed journalist Anne Applebaum delivers a groundbreaking history of how Communism took over Eastern Europe after World War II and transformed in frightening fashion the individuals who came under its sway.

At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union to its surprise and delight found itself in control of a huge swath of territory in Eastern Europe. Stalin and his secret police set out to convert a dozen radically different countries to Communism, a completely new political and moral system. In Iron...
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95
Designed to appeal to the book lover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautifully bound pocket-sized gift editions of much loved classic titles. Bound in real cloth, printed on high quality paper, and featuring ribbon markers and gilt edges, Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

The four great comedies of Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husbandand The Importance of Being Earnest, were all written at the height of the controversial Irish author's powers in his last, doomed decade, the...
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Recommended by Sos Eltis, and 1 others.

Sos EltisIn this play it is the women who are the ones with the real power and authority. (Source)

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96
Socialism was man's most ambitious attempt to supplant religion with a doctrine claiming to ground itself in "science." Each failure to create societies of abundance or give birth to "the New Man" inspired more searching for the path to the promised land: revolution, communes, social democracy, communism, fascism, Arab socialism, African socialism. None worked, and some exacted a staggering human toll. Then, after two centuries of wishful thinking and bitter disappointment, socialism imploded in a fin de si�cle drama of falling walls and collapsing regimes. It was an astonishing... more

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97
Neoliberalism - the doctrine that market exchange is an ethic in itself, capable of acting as a guide for all human action - has become dominant in both thought and practice throughout much of the world since 1970 or so. Writing for a wide audience, David Harvey, author of The New Imperialism and The Condition of Postmodernity, here tells the political-economic story of where neoliberalization came from and how it proliferated on the world stage. Through critical engagement with this history, he constructs a framework, not only for analyzing the political and economic dangers that now... more

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98

German Ideology

2011 Reprint of 1939 Edition. Parts I & III of "The German Ideology". Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Originally published by the Marx-Engels Institute in Moscow in 1939. "The German Ideology" was written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels circa 1846, but published later. The original edition was divided into three parts. Part I, the most significant, is perhaps the classic statement of the Marxist theory of history and his much cited "materialist conception of history". Since its first publication, Marxist scholars have found Part... more

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99

Why You Should Be a Socialist

A primer on Democratic Socialism for those who are extremely skeptical of it.

America is witnessing the rise of a new generation of socialist activists. More young people support socialism now than at any time since the labor movement of the 1920s. The Democratic Socialists of America, a big-tent leftist organization, has just surpassed 50,000 members nationwide. In the fall of 2018, one of the most influential congressmen in the Democratic Party lost a primary to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old socialist who had never held office before. But what does all this...
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100
In February 1917, in the midst of bloody war, Russia was still an autocratic monarchy: nine months later, it became the first socialist state in world history. How did this unimaginable transformation take place? How was a ravaged and backward country, swept up in a desperately unpopular war, rocked by not one but two revolutions?

This is the story of the extraordinary months between those upheavals, in February and October, of the forces and individuals who made 1917 so epochal a year, of their intrigues, negotiations, conflicts and catastrophes. From familiar names like Lenin and...
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