The Invention of Marxism is a rich group biography of the founding generation of socialists, who introduced millions to Karl Marx’s ideas. Even where it falls short, its details still charm and provoke interest.
During World War I, Eugene V. Debs saw socialism as the “star of hope” that might redeem a world wracked by violence. Read his message of renewal as we leave a war-torn year behind and head into a new one.
When it came to movies this year, the junk outstripped the gems. But three films rose above the muck.
Dive into Jacobin’s “best books of the year” list. From sweeping 19th-century tales of rural life to the politics of war to contemporary accounts of revolution — we’ve got your reading needs covered.
More than half a million workers in the US went on strike this year, winning gains not only for themselves but for nonunion workers too. While there’s much more work to be done, 2023 was a year when the working class punched back at the capitalist class.
This year had plenty of horrors. But there was also much cause for hope, from the burgeoning pro-Palestine movement to the UAW’s historic strike.
As director of the FBI for several decades, J. Edgar Hoover helped build a massive, professionalized national security state and hounded leftists out of public life. In doing so, he profoundly shaped the course of US history.
South Africa has asked the International Court of Justice to rule that Israel is guilty of “genocidal acts” in Gaza. The architects of the Genocide Convention intended it to be used to stop the mass killing of civilians before it is too late.
Jacobin has been putting out socialist content at a rapid clip since 2010. Here’s a handy guide to some of the most important works from our archive, from our humble beginnings to the present day.
Since 2015, the EU has increasingly demanded that African states repress migration on its behalf. It secures their compliance through economic coercion — exploiting debt relations which have in recent times sharply turned in favor of rich EU countries.
The diverse mosaic of European socialism engaged both reformists and revolutionaries, often driven by not just intellect but also profound religious conviction. Together, these elements shaped the democratic socialist tradition.
Beyond a Boundary turned 60 this year. The classic book by C. L. R. James used cricket as a window into the history of the West Indies as its people liberated themselves from British colonial rule, defying racism to find their place in the world as equals.
At the height of a calamitous war presided over by a Democratic president, the brilliant socialist organizer Bayard Rustin tried to forge a mass coalition to deliver progressive change. His failure to do so in the 1960s tells us much about building one today.
Even before Hamas’s attack on October 7, the Israeli state knew it couldn’t subject Gaza to an unlivable siege forever. Now Israel’s rage has turned huge swathes of the densely populated territory into a howling wasteland.
Cloaked in an impenetrable jargon, “decoloniality” dehistoricizes and culturalizes colonialism. It’s a political and intellectual dead end for socialists.
Left-wing forces in Spain, France, Germany and Greece all recently suffered damaging splits. They each stumbled over a common problem: how to influence institutions while focusing on priorities ignored by the dominant media-political class.
The history of socialist politics in the Global South shows that all capitalists want a government that will govern unapologetically in their interests — and would prefer the intervention of foreign powers than democracy and socialism at home.
As I covered the Hollywood strike this year, perhaps the best guide was a 1941 novel by a former Communist Party member about the dog-eat-dog scumbaggery of movie executives and the lying and artless bragging that Hollywood runs on.
Eighteen-year-old Israeli Tal Mitnick has just been sent to prison for refusing to enlist in the army and participate in what he calls a “war of revenge” in Gaza. He’s a hero.
Recently genealogists discovered that Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, is a distant relative of Antonio Gramsci. Though they share little else, Meloni has engaged in a campaign for control over cultural institutions that Gramsci would understand well.