Rupture as Rapture. We have nothing to lose but our chains.
A passionate argument for the continued, urgent relevance of The Communist Manifesto.
Though perhaps best known in the U.S. as an award-winning writer of speculative fiction, Miéville has both a doctorate in international relations and a long history as a Marxist. As such, he comes to the topic not as a dilettante but as a learned apostle of the communist creed. The author escorts readers through the Manifesto’s origins and publication history before launching into a summary of the document itself. (Samuel Moore’s 1888 English translation is appended for reference along with several introductions to various editions.) Miéville’s exegesis draws on both external commentators and co-authors Karl Marx’s and Friedrich Engels’ other writings to inform it. It is when Miéville enters into dialogue with the Manifesto’s critics that his own writing comes most robustly to life. In addressing those who take swipes at the document’s religiosity, the author responds with an unabashed “So what” and leans in, exhorting readers to “incant the Manifesto, as its catechism-derived rhythms and techniques plead for you to do….Does not the Manifesto repeatedly describe its aim as rupture?…This is an eschatological moment.” This is a slim volume but by no means a light one. Miéville’s audience is assumed to have either a high degree of comfort with his 75-cent vocabulary or a dictionary (fissiparous, imbricated, apophatic, etc.). Nonetheless, his argument is persuasive, pointing to such contemporary phenomena as America’s “vicious, racialized carceral regime” as evidence of capitalism’s “excrescences”—and its sinister “adaptability.” Like Marx and Engels, Miéville offers no real road map for post-capitalist life, just the certainty that “this carnival of predatory rapacity will [never be] fit to live in.” He builds to a rapturous conclusion, thundering from his pulpit as he enlists readers among the “we who reach the tipping point where this unliveable disempowering tawdry ugly violent murderous world can no longer be lived.”
Rupture as Rapture. We have nothing to lose but our chains.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64259-893-3
Page Count: 292
Publisher: Haymarket Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.
Documenting perilous times.
In his most recent behind-the-scenes account of political power and how it is wielded, Woodward synthesizes several narrative strands, from the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel to the 2024 presidential campaign. Woodward’s clear, gripping storytelling benefits from his legendary access to prominent figures and a structure of propulsive chapters. The run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is tense (if occasionally repetitive), as a cast of geopolitical insiders try to divine Vladimir Putin’s intent: “Doubt among allies, the public and among Ukrainians meant valuable time and space for Putin to maneuver.” Against this backdrop, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham implores Donald Trump to run again, notwithstanding the former president’s denial of his 2020 defeat. This provides unwelcome distraction for President Biden, portrayed as a thoughtful, compassionate lifetime politico who could not outrace time, as demonstrated in the June 2024 debate. Throughout, Trump’s prevarications and his supporters’ cynicism provide an unsettling counterpoint to warnings provided by everyone from former Joint Chief of Staff Mark Milley to Vice President Kamala Harris, who calls a second Trump term a likely “death knell for American democracy.” The author’s ambitious scope shows him at the top of his capabilities. He concludes with these unsettling words: “Based on my reporting, Trump’s language and conduct has at times presented risks to national security—both during his presidency and afterward.”
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781668052273
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
IN THE NEWS
PERSPECTIVES
An incisive, urgently relevant analysis of—and call to action on—America’s foundational ideal.
An examination of how the U.S. can revitalize its commitment to freedom.
In this ambitious study, Snyder, author of On Tyranny, The Road to Unfreedom, and other books, explores how American freedom might be reconceived not simply in negative terms—as freedom from coercion, especially by the state—but positive ones: the freedom to develop our human potential within sustaining communal structures. The author blends extensive personal reflections on his own evolving understanding of liberty with definitions of the concept by a range of philosophers, historians, politicians, and social activists. Americans, he explains, often wrongly assume that freedom simply means the removal of some barrier: “An individual is free, we think, when the government is out of the way. Negative freedom is our common sense.” In his careful and impassioned description of the profound implications of this conceptual limitation, Snyder provides a compelling account of the circumstances necessary for the realization of positive freedom, along with a set of detailed recommendations for specific sociopolitical reforms and policy initiatives. “We have to see freedom as positive, as beginning from virtues, as shared among people, and as built into institutions,” he writes. The author argues that it’s absurd to think of government as the enemy of freedom; instead, we ought to reimagine how a strong government might focus on creating the appropriate conditions for human flourishing and genuine liberty. Another essential and overlooked element of freedom is the fostering of a culture of solidarity, in which an awareness of and concern for the disadvantaged becomes a guiding virtue. Particularly striking and persuasive are the sections devoted to eviscerating the false promises of libertarianism, exposing the brutal injustices of the nation’s penitentiaries, and documenting the wide-ranging pathologies that flow from a tax system favoring the ultrawealthy.
An incisive, urgently relevant analysis of—and call to action on—America’s foundational ideal.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9780593728727
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
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