Chairman Mao remains a polarizing historical figure and key communist thinker alongside Marx and Lenin. The ‘Little Red Book’ is a widely influential text that shaped leftist movements globally, emphasizing the importance of the masses in history. Despite Mao’s controversial legacy, the book’s simple yet profound ideas continue to provoke thought and discussion.
The Cuban Revolution was an earth-shattering event with huge consequences internationally, not just in Latin America, but further afield. I felt the impact myself whilst travelling across Scandinavia in 2005. I’d run out of clean underwear and, while scanning the aisles of a Göteborg department store, I came face to…
View More Guerrilla Heroico
This is the second Hobsbawm book that I have tackled and I find him to be a detailed, erudite, intelligent author and his obvious left-leaning politics readily assist him in compiling this study of Karl Marx and his work. The first part of the book looks directly at Marx’s work,…
View More Review: How to Change the World – Tales of Marx and Marxism – by Eric Hobsbawm
Ingrid Betancourt was one of the most high profile political prisoners in the world during her captivity in the Colombian Jungle at the hands of the FARC-EP, Colombia’s left wing communist guerrillas. A brutal civil war has raged for the best part of 60 years in this Southern hemisphere country.…
View More Review: Even Silence has an End – My six years of Captivity in the Colombian Jungle – by Ingrid Betancourt
This book examines socialism in France, exploring the evolution of the political left from the nineteenth century through detailed chapters. It covers the rise of trade unionism, the SFIO’s ascent, and the decline of socialist power as communists gained influence. The final chapter discusses Mitterand’s 1981 electoral victory and its historical significance.
View More Review: Marxism and the French Left – by Tony Judt
The FARC: The Longest Insurgency by Garry Leech My rating: 4 of 5 stars This book covers a very interesting subject for what in general there is a dearth of information and that which does exist tends to be fundamentally skewed with bias. The left wing of Colombia’s forty year…
View More Review: The FARC: The Longest Insurgency