Merlin Press Ltd. AFRICAN, ASIAN AND LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES

ZIMBABWE'S PLUNGE
Exhausted Nationalism, Neoliberalism and the Struggle for Social Justice

by Patrick Bond & Masimba Manyanya

Zimbabwe confronts contradictions that bedevil both nationalists and neo-liberals. An alternative political project is sketched out, drawing on the Zimbabwean people's struggles for social justice.
This book makes international comparisons, and applies great analytical depth to the country's politics. Four appendices provide current seminal economic texts from the ruling party, the MDC, the National Working People's Convention and Jubilee South.
272 pages
ISBN. 0850365171
2002 Paperback
Rights: Europe only.

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Price: £14.95

UNSUSTAINABLE SOUTH AFRICA
Environment, Development and Social Protest

by Patrick Bond

Why can multinationals build Africa's largest dam, and price water at levels that many Johannesburg residents can't afford? Why are illegal electricity connections so common in Soweto? Why is South Africa amongst the world's worst emitters of greenhouse gases? Critical perspectives on post-Apartheid South Africa's 'sustainable development' experience, and on the neo-liberal, market-oriented strategies adopted by central government and most municipalities since democracy dawned in 1994. Maps, tables and photos.

'An essential work for all activist-intellectuals concerned with development and the environment. It may serve as a source of readings for courses in economic development in general or African development in particular, or as a text in any course dealing with capitalism and the environment. For the more general reader, it provides a first-rate introduction to the post-apartheid South African political economy ...' Paul Burkett, The Review of Radical Political Economics. 'Unsustainable South Africa is an essential work for all activist-intellectuals concerned with development and the environment. It may serve as a source of readings for courses dealing with African development, capitalism and the environment, or both.' Studies In Marxism

'Bond and his ten co-authors provide a radical tour-de-force in this refreshing volume. Their rich analysis of social policy choices made in South Africa by the post-apartheid government is a courageous contribution to the corpus of literature linking society, environment and development in that country.' African Studies Review

ISBN. 0850365228
2002 Paperback
Rights: Europe only.

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Price: £18.95

NEO-COLONIAL IDENTITY AND COUNTERCONSCIOUSNESS
Essays on Cultural Decolonisation

Renato Constantino

Constantino, a leading Filipino intellectual, lays bare the operation of the US colonial system in the Philippines -one of the first areas of US intervention in the 1900s.
223x142mm 308pp

1978 Paperback
Price: £10.95

THE CAPE TOWN INTELLECTUALS
Ruth Schechter and Her Circle, 1907-1934

by Baruch Hirson

The story of Ruth Schechter who lived most of her life in Cape Town where she encountered powerful figures, and powerless coloureds living in District Six. ( inc. F Bodmer, M. K. Gandhi, L. Hogben, L. van der Post, and B. Farrington) she became a particularly close to Olive Schreiner.
220x 150 mm Illustrated: Black and white photos, xxxi+253 pp, index.
ISBN. 0850365007
2001 Paperback

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Price: £14.95

COLOUR AND CLASS: THE ORIGINS OF SOUTH AFRICAN TROTSKYISM
Edited by Baruch Hirson

Historical and analytical essays on the political dynamics of South African Trotskyism, assembled under the guidance of the noted South African historian Baruch Hirson. In his essays Hirson not only gives an extensive account of the early years of the South African Trotskyist movement, including vignettes of many of its leading personalities, but presents studies of the South African socio-economic formation and of the rise of Socialism in South Africa. These help the reader to understand the conditions in which the Trotskyist movement emerged. The contents include a wide variety of documents and correspondence from the 1930s and 1940s including a previously unpublished letter by Leon Trotsky. The founding theses of the Workers Party of South Africa are included, and these give penetrating insights into the racist nature of South African capitalism, the problems of building an effective trade union movement within a racially divided working class, the nature of a revolutionary party, and conflicting ways of building an anti-war movement.

Contents: Editorial Narrative; Baruch Hirson: The economic background to South Africa; Baruch Hirson: Resistance and socialism in South Africa; Baruch Hirson: The Trotskyist groups in South Africa; Ian Hunter: Raff Lee and the pioneer Trotskyists of Johannesburg; Baruch Hirson: The Trotskyists and the trade unionists; Baruch Hirson: Profiles of some South African Trotskyists Documents; Preliminary correspondence (On the founding of the first group in SA, Thibedi, Trotsky); The land question: Race and class (Items by Burlak, Ruth Fischer and the WPSA); The Trade Unions (Burlak, Max Gordon); Party and Class (Burlak); The Coming War (Averbach, Burlak)

Revolutionary History Vol 4 No 4, 1993, ISSN 0953-2382; includes regular features: Editorial; Work in Progress; Book Reviews; Obituaries; Reader's Notes.

A5 224 pages
ISBN. 9780955112737
1993

Price: £12.95

BRAM FISCHER
A Life for Africa

Naomi Mitchison

A study of an Afrikaner who deserted his conservative family and his own ruling class to fight with Africans and workers against Apartheid.
214x135mm 190pp.
1973 Paperback

Price: £14.95

BLOWS AGAINST THE EMPIRE
Trotskyism in Ceylon, the Lanka Sama Samaja Party 1935-1964
Edited by Al Richardson

The Lanka Sama Samaja Party was a major force in the political scene of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and an outstanding component of the world Trotskyist movement. It led large and militant trade unions and strikes, and had at one point 12 members of parliament and one senator.

This book is the first account of the LSSP which draws almost exclusively from the party's own documentation and from the works of Sri Lankan scholars, rather than being focused through the debates amongst European and North American Trotskyists.
It covers the history of the LSSP from its foundation in 1935, through its adherence to the Fourth International in the late 1930s, its illegal activity during the Second World War, its attitude towards Ceylon's independence and the contentious issue of the state language, and its rôle in the Hartal of 1953, to its joining a coalition government led by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party in 1964, which led to its expulsion from the Fourth International.

Contents: Editorial; The Origins of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party and Manifesto of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party, Kumari Jayawardene; Politics of the LSSP, Philip Gunawardene; The Defence of Mark Bracegirdle, Kumari Jayawardene; Interview with Bracegirdle, conducted by Bob Pitt; The LSSP turns to Trotskyism 1939-41, Perera, Goonewardene, de Silva & anon; The LSSP 1939-60, Fernando; The LSSP Against Imperialist War, Perera, Gunawardena; The 1945 Split in the LSSP, Amarasinghe Gunawardena, NM Perera, De Silva; The Dispute over Independence, 1948, De Silva, Perera, Dissanayake; The Unification of the LSSP in 1950: interview with Rajasooriya, articles by Gunawardene etc; The Great Hartal of 1953, Tampoe, Samarakoddy, Goonewardene, Rajasooriya; Tamil Rights: The LSSP Against Sinhala Only, 1955-56, Goonewardene; LSSP Declaration, Perera; The LSSP Against the People's Front (1956-1960) ,Grannum, Samarakoddy; Years of Crisis, 1960-64, Amerasinghe Karalasingham; Charles Wesley Ervin, Trotskyism in India (Part 2, 1942-48).

Revolutionary History Vol 6 No 4, 1997, ISSN 0953-2382 includes regular features: Editorial; Work in Progress; Book Reviews; Obituaries; Reader's Notes.

230 x 145 mm. 318 pages
ISBN. 9781899438266
1997
Price: £14.95

BOLIVIA. THE REVOLUTION DERAILED?
The Crisis of 1952 and the Trotskyist Movement
Edited by Al Richardson

This book considers the role of Trotskyism in Bolivia, where in the 1950's, it had a leading position within the workers' movement. When in 1952 that country was plunged into a situation of deep crisis, was this a situation of dual power? Select documentation- six key texts- both defend and criticise the policies followed at the time by the Bolivian Revolutionary Workers Party (POR).

Contents: Juan Robles: Trotskyism in Bolivia; Guillermo Lora: The Bolivian revolution and the Activity of the POR; Pierre Broué: Bolivia, 9 April 1952: A Forgotten 'February Revolution'?; International Executive Committee: Draft Resolution; Liborio Justo: Bolivia. The Revolution Defeated; Jean Lieven: Bolivia; Jose Villa: A Revolution Betrayed.

Revolutionary History Vol 4 No 3, 1992; ISSN 0953-2382; includes regular features: Editorial; Work in Progress; Book Reviews; Obituaries; Reader's Notes.

A5 160 pages
ISBN. 9780955502804
1992
Price: £12.00

THE HIDDEN PEARL OF THE CARIBBEAN
Trotskyism in Cuba
Edited by Al Richardson

Essays on the movement before the Second World War and its subsequent evolution: Gary Tennant describes the origins of Cuban Trotskyism within the Cuban Communist Party in the late 1920s, its rôle in the Revolution of the 1930s, the Second World War and the Revolution of 1959, and its troubled existence under Castro's regime. He shows the strong support it enjoyed within the working class during the 1930s, and the constant contradiction between its commitment to the concept of Permanent Revolution and its adaptation to bourgeois nationalist currents.

Contents: Editorial; Gary Tennant, An Introduction to the History of Trotskyism in Cuba; Gary Tennant, The Background: Nationalism and Communism in Cuba; Gary Tennant, Julio Antonio Mella and the Roots of Dissension in the Partido Comunista de Cuba; Gary Tennant, The Birth of Dissident Cuban Communism and the Oposición Comunista de Cuba, 1930-33; Gary Tennant, The Partido Bolchevique Leninista and the Revolution of the 1930s; Gary Tennant, Trotskyism in Cuba Between the Revolutions; Gary Tennant, The Reorganised Partido Obrero Revolucionario (Trotskista) and the 1959 Revolution; To the Cuban Workers and Peasants; Letter from the Workers Party of the United States to the Cuban Trotskyists; Gary Tennant, Historical Vignettes; An Interview with Roberto Acosta Hechavarría; The International Secretariat and the Cuban Trotskyists; Thirty Years Since the Death of Ernesto Guevara.

Revolutionary History Vol 7 No 3, 2000, ISSN 0953-2382 includes regular features: Editorial; Work in Progress; Book Reviews; Obituaries; Reader's Notes.

230 x 145 mm. 315 pages
ISBN. 9781899438334
2000
Price: £14.95

WORKING CLASS OF INDIA
History of Emergence and Movement

by Sukomal Sen

Revised and enlarged second edition.
A historical survey relating trade union and political developments to the revolutionary dynamism of the Indian Working class from 1830 to 1900. Brief notes on events up to 1995.
210x 137mm xii+577pp
1997 Paperback

Rights: Europe only.
Price: £14.95