Merlin Press Ltd. WORLD POLITICS AND SOCIALIST STUDIES

KARL MARX AND THE CLOSE OF HIS SYSTEM

Eugen Von Bohm-Bawerk and Rudolph Hilferding

Brings together two of the most important items in the large literature concerned with criticising and evaluating the economic doctrines of Karl Marx: Eugen Von Bohm-Bawerk's Karl Marx and the Close of His System and Rudolph Hilferding's reply, Bawerk's Criticism of Marx. Edited by Paul Sweezy.
223x142mm 340pp
ISBN. 0850362067
1975 Paperback

Rights: Europe only
Price: £12.95

SCIENCE AND THE RETREAT FROM REASON

by John Gillot & Manjit Kumar

Today nature is often glorified and science seen as dangerous and meddlesome: can science serve humanity? The loss of faith in progress has engendered a loss of faith in the potential of science.

'A comprehensive critique of the degraded relationship between science and modern society...Science and the Retreat from Reason is the most substantial contribution to the Marxist critique of the role of science in capitalist society for at least half a century.' L M

223x142mm 287pp
ISBN. 0850364337
1995 Paperback

Rights: USA and Canada: Monthly Review Press

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Price: £10.95

SCIENCE AND THE RETREAT FROM REASON

by John Gillot & Manjit Kumar

0850364515
1995 Hardback
Rights: USA and Canada: Monthly Review Press

See above for contents.
Price: £25.00

THE MAKING OF A CYBERTARIAT
Virtual Work in a Real World

by Ursula Huws

A new global labour force is being created working in call centres, homes and electronic sweatshops. New technologies are also transforming daily life. This book presents a coherent conceptual framework within which these developments can be understood.
This book explains the impact of technology on the workplace, and relates its arguments and analyses to the work-situations of real people, showing how larger trends influence daily activities and shape the possibilities of collective action.
It portrays working conditions experienced by both men and women, but focuses especially on the double impact on women both as workers and as consumers.

"Huws is in the myth-busting business. She does it with razor-sharp analysis and wit." Joan Greenbaum
"These essays chart the transformation of work and technology with an acute theoretical originality. Ursula Huws has the rare ability to cut through existing abstract models with a clarity based on an immense practical understanding. The implications of The Making of a Cybertariat are far reaching in rethinking a radical strategy for the future." Sheila Rowbotham,
"following the author's writings that span 30 years we get a sense not only of how the field has developed, but also of how the phenomena in question are being interpreted differently. Consequently, the early chapters and her reflections regarding why information workers (office workers, women) were largely ignored by contemporary Marxist labour research provide revealing insights, and inspire careful reflection." Bente Rasmussen

"She has established a mode of feminist political economy illuminating many of our contemporary social experiences, and offered promising lines for rethinking some key Left programmes and values." Review of Radical Political Economics

213 x 135 mm. 208 pp.
ISBN. 0850365376
2003 Paperback

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Price: £13.95

HISTORY AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS
Studies in Marxist Dialectics

Georg Lukács

Lukács wrote the essays in the 1920s reflecting on his experiences in Hungary where he was a commissar in the short-lived Soviet Republic. He explores problems of consciousness and organization, drawing on Luxemburg and Lenin. "It is one of the indispensable works of the twentieth century." Raymond Williams, Guardian.
Translated by Rodney Livingstone.

223x142mm 404p 4th impression
ISBN. 0850361974
1971/1968 paperback

Rights; USA and Canada: MIT Press

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Price: £12.95

HISTORY AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS
Studies in Marxist Dialectics

Georg Lukács

1971/1968 hardback

See above for contents.
Price: £18.95

THE ONTOLOGY OF SOCIAL BEING
Volume 1: Hegel

Georg Lukács

Translated by David Fernbach
Contents: Hegel's Dialectic 'amid the manure of contradictions': Hegel's Dialectical Ontology and the Reflection Determinations: Notes.
223x142mm 116pp
ISBN. 0850362261
1978 paperback
Reprinted 2007
Price: £9.95

THE ONTOLOGY OF SOCIAL BEING
Volume 2: Marx

Georg Lukács

Contents: Methodological Preliminaries: The Critique of Political Economy: Historicity and Theoretical Generality: Notes.
223x142mm 174pp
ISBN. 085036227X
1978 paperback
Reprinted 2007
Price: £9.95

THE ONTOLOGY OF SOCIAL BEING
Volume 3: Labour

Contents: Labour as a Teleological Positing: Labour as a model of Social Practice: The Subject-Object Relation in Labour and its Consequences, Notes.
223x142mm vi+142pp
ISBN. 0850362555
Reprinted 2007

Price: £9.95

THE YOUNG HEGEL
Studies In The Relations Between Dialectics & Economics

Georg Lukács

Lukács study focuses on Hegel's discussion of 'positivity', the forerunner of the later concept of 'alienation' as developed further by Marx. He argues that Hegel's philosophy evolved in reaction to events of his time. Translated by Rodney Livingstone

Contents: Hegel's early Republican phase 1793-96: Crisis in Hegel's views 179-1800: Rationale and Defence of Objective Idealism 1801-1803: The break with Schelling 1803-07.
223x142mm 576pp
ISBN. 0850361893
1975
Reprinted in paperback 2007

Price: £22.50

MARXIST ECONOMIC THEORY

Ernest Mandel

'The best and most comprehensive popularisation of Marx's economic theory for more than a generation.' Issac Deutscher.

Translated by B. Pearce.

215x 137 mm 797pp
ISBN. 0850361664
1968 paperback

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Price: £19.50

MARXIST ECONOMIC THEORY

Ernest Mandel

0850360730
1968 hardback

See above for details.
Price: £30.00

THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

Translated by Samuel Moore

The Communist Manifesto is perhaps the most influential pamphlet ever written. It has inspired generations of Socialists.
First published in 1848, its arguments and analysis still rings true:

Classes have a decisive role in history.
Capitalism impacts on the entire world.
Socialists need to organise for the liberation of all working peoples.

30 pages.
ISBN. 0850364787
Reprinted 2003 pamphlet
Price: £1.00

ANTI-BOLSHEVIK COMMUNISM
by Paul Mattick

ISBN. 9780850362237

Merlin Press
Reprinted in paperback 2007
Price: £14.95

ECONOMIC CRISIS AND CRISIS THEORY

Paul Mattick

Paul Mattick examines the crisis cycle, both as it has asserted itself historically and with respect to the responses it has evoked in economic theory.

Contents: Bourgeois Economics: Marx's Crisis Theory: the Epigones: Splendor and Misery of the Mixed Economy: Ernest Mandel's Late Capitalism.

223x142mm 232pp
ISBN. 0850362695
1981 paperback
Price: £9.95

ECONOMICS, POLITICS AND THE AGE OF INFLATION

Paul Mattick

'Mattick's sharp Marxist interpretation of our contemporary capitalist crisis is a welcome alternative to the increasingly sterile ruminations of conventional economists.' Robert Lekachman: City University of New York.

Contents: Crisis Of Mixed Economy: Destruction of Money: On The Concept of State-Monopoly Capital: State Capitalism: The Great Depression and the New Deal.

227x150mm 144pp
0850362598
1978 paperback
Price: £7.95

MARX AND KEYNES
The Limits of the Mixed Economy

Paul Mattick

Paul Mattick's critique of Keynes anticipates the collapse of Keynesian solutions in a sustained capitalist crisis.

223x142mm 364pp
ISBN. 085036230X
1971/1969 paperback

Price: £12.95

BEYOND CAPITAL
Towards a Theory of Transition

István Mészáros

A magnum opus: confronting problems of philosophy and practice. A critique of capital opening vistas to new and better societies.

'With theoretical sophistication: a wealth of information and lively polemical passages: Beyond Capital is a carefully coherent construction enabling us to discover new horizons.' Daniel Singer: The Nation.

'A monumental critique of capital and capitalism.'
HERRAMIENTA, Argentina

'Its powerful prose, brilliant argument and caustic humour are worthy of Marx himself. Mészáros has restated the goals and clarified the arguments for the millennium ahead of us.'
CANADIAN DIMENSION, Canada

'A devastating critique of contemporary capitalism.'
ACTUEL MARX, France

'Hungarian philosophy cannot ignore the appearance of this monumental synthesizing work.' ESMÉLET, Hungary

'A great attempt to continue Marx's work.'
NOTIZARIO PUNTO ROSSO, Italy

'One of the most important books written in our time.'
DIALÉCTICA, Mexico

'It is not just a matter of forcefully restating known truths, but pushing the argument further, to overcome the limitations of Marx's own work and assess the significance of contemporary trends.' RADICAL PHILOSOPHY, UK

'The definitive Marxian synthesis for the present.'
MONTHLY REVIEW, USA

This is an important book, heavy in size and tone. It belongs in every serious library.' CHOICE, American Library Association, USA

'Mészáros's work, without exaggeration, represents the most substantive and systematic analysis accomplished since Marx's time...' EL OJO DE HURACAN, Venezuela

230x152 mm. 1020 pp.
0850364329
1995 Paperback

Rights: USA and Canada: Monthly Review Press

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Price: £14.95

BEYOND CAPITAL
Towards a Theory of Transition

István Mészáros

085036454X
1995 Hardback

See above for details.
Price: £45.00

MARX'S THEORY OF ALIENATION
This book focuses on the origins of Marx's thought and on his early writings especially The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844. It was a winner of the Isaac Deutscher Memorial Prize.
'In the hands of a creative thinker conviction and passion can give wings to the freedom struggle. Meszaros' book is a 'winger' - one of the most far-reaching books of on the subject of Marx's theory of alienation since Lukács' seminal Geschichte und Klassenbewusstsein." [History and Class Consciousness] The Review of Metaphysics.

'Immensely learned and well-read" Times Literary Supplement

Outline Contents: Origin and Structure if the Marxian Theory: Aspects of Alienation: Contemporary Significance of Marx's Theory of Alienation: Notes: Bibliography: Index.

223x142mm 356pp 4th edition
ISBN. 0850362423
1974 hardback only
Paperback reprinting 2005

Price: £30.00

THE NECESSITY OF SOCIAL CONTROL

István Mészáros

This Isaac Deutscher memorial lecture is an argument for submitting society to control by society rather than to control by capital.

'vital to anyone who is concerned with the difficulties of elaborating a practical socialist programme.' Tribune.

181x113mm 70pp
ISBN. 0850361532
1971 Paperback
Price: £2.95

GLOBAL CAPITALISM & AMERICAN EMPIRE

by Leo Panitch & Sam Gindin

The American Empire has usually come in through the back door rather than the front door: its own empire of business was made plausible and attractive by the American state's insistence that it was not imperialistic.
The USA presented itself as the scourge of the old colonialism, spreading democracy and freedom of opportunity, rather than an old-style Empire of armed conquest. Its informal empire, uniquely combining, as Thomas Jefferson put it, 'extensive empire with self-government', has allowed American business to directly invest abroad and produce and sell there, with the American state politically requiring the host states to protect and maintain capitalism.
After the Second World War, the USA integrated the states of Japan and Western Europe into own informal empire, bringing an end to the old inter-imperial rivalries. Through the crisis of the Bretton Woods system in the 1970s, American hegemony, far from being fundamentally challenged by the other advanced capitalist states, came to be reconstituted in the form of global neoliberalism. Under American-managed globalization all international institutions and individual states are expected to become pliant but active agents in reproducing global capitalism.

96 pages, 178 x 112 mm.
ISBN. 0850365422
Paperback

Please note that this is the first essay in Socialist Register 2004.
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Price: £6.95

LEFT HISTORY Volume 8 No. 2
An Interdisciplinary Journal of Historical Inquiry and Debate
Left History features articles from a variety of theoretical approaches including feminist, marxist, and postmodernist on topics such as race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, culture, the state, the environment, theory, and method. The print edition features articles presenting new research and theory, art, debate, books reviews, and review essays. Contributors include established authors and new writers.

235 pages
ISSN. 1192-1927
Paperback

See contents here:

Price: £4.95

LEFT HISTORY Volume 9 No. 1 Fall/Winter 2004
See below

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Price: £4.95

LENIN AS PHILOSOPHER
A critical examination of the philosophical basis of Leninism
by Anton Pannekoek

In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, Anton Pannekoek investigated the impact of Lenin's ideas and of his philosophical work Materialism and Empirio-criticism, which had appeared in Russian in 1908.
Price: £10.95

THE MYTH OF THE GOOD WAR
America in the Second World War

by Jacques R. Pauwels

A fresh and provocative look at the role of the USA in the Second World War.

Historian Jacques Pauwels attacks the widely held belief that the Second World War was the 'good war', the war in which America led the forces of democracy and freedom to victory over fascist dictatorship and Japanese militarism.
He argues that the role of the USA was determined not by idealism, but by the interests of America's corporations and by the country's social, economic and political leaders.
He examines the American elite's response to fascism, and looks at how American companies collaborated with Nazi Germany, at how Uncle Joe was presented as the next enemy, at why bombing Dresden was a warning to the Soviet Union. He explores reasons why anti-fascists were marginalized in post-war Germany, why America did little to support De-Nazification but did support German business interests.

... his documentation is sound, his reasoning sharp.'
Quill & Quire

... accessible and well-written book... The reader feels immersed in a bath of refreshing ideas.' De Morgen

ISBN. 0850365368
Paperback

Price: £14.95

THE COMINTERN AND ITS CRITICS
Edited by Al Richardson

Essays on the evolution of the Communist International: formed in 1919 to provide a revolutionary leadership for the world's working class, it degenerated despite the efforts of the left which tried to pull it back onto a revolutionary course, and, when this proved impossible, to develop new organisations that could carry out the tasks that it had abandoned.

Perspectives from early critics in Britain, Austria and Sri Lanka; essays on Stalin, Dimitrov and the Reichstag fire and on Tito; with a historiographical survey on British Communism.

Contents: Editorial I: Those Against; John McIlroy, New Light on Arthur Reade: Tracking Down Britain's First Trotskyist; Fritz Keller, Trotskyism in Austria; Charles Wesley Ervin, Philip Gunawardena: The Making of a Revolutionary II: All Change; Walter Kendall, The Communist International and the Turn from 'Social-Fascism' to the Popular Front; Jean-Jacques Marie, The Journal of Georgi Dimitrov III: Family Quarrels; Ante Ciliga, How Tito Took Over the Yugoslav Communist Party; John McIlroy, Rehabilitating Communist History: The Communist International, the Communist Party of Great Britain and Some Historians IV: Objections Overruled: Spain; Grandizo Munis and Jaime Fernández.

Revolutionary History Vol 8 No 1, 2001, ISSN 0953-2382 includes regular features: Editorial; Work in Progress; Book Reviews; Obituaries; Reader's Notes.

A5 316 pages
ISBN. 9781899438389
2001
Price: £14.95

CULTURE AND REVOLUTION IN THE THOUGHT OF LEON TROTSKY
Edited by Al Richardson

An anthology: over half the contents are essays on a broad range of cultural issues, including Ibsen, Gorky, Impressionism and the Secessionist school of art, and on the political and philosophical trends within the Russian intelligentsia, along with an important article from 1925 on the broader aspects of culture and socialism. These are complemented by wide-ranging writings by other writers.

Contents: Editorial The Culture of the Old World; Leon Trotsky, Ibsen; Leon Trotsky, Two Literary Souls at the Mercy of the Metaphysical Demon; Leon Trotsky, Poetry, the Machine, and the Poetry of the Machine; Leon Trotsky, On the Novel in General and on The Three of Them in Particular; Leon Trotsky, Culture and the Little White Bull; Paul Flewers, Vekhi and the Retreat from Reason Impressionism: Trotsky in Vienna; Fritz Keller, Trotsky in Vienna; Leon Trotsky, On Death and Eros; Leon Trotsky, A New Year's Conversation about Art; Leon Trotsky, The Vienna Secession of 1909; Leon Trotsky, Two Viennese Exhibitions; Leon Trotsky, On the Intelligentsia; Leon Trotsky, Vienna Secession 1913 The Culture of the Transition Period; John Plant, Trotsky, Art and the Revolution; Antonio Gramsci, A Letter to Leon Trotsky on Futurism; Leon Trotsky, For Quality -- For Culture! Culture Under the Dictators; Pierre Naville, Trotsky on Art and Literature; Richard Greeman, Did Trotsky Read Serge?; Esther Leslie, Elective Affinities; James T Farrell, A Memoir of Leon Trotsky; Leon Trotsky, Marcel Martinet; Leon Trotsky, The Attitude of Men of Letters; An Interview with Jean Malaquais; Fritz Keller, Stalinism versus Hedonism The International Federation of Independent Revolutionary Artists; Maurice Nadeau, Trotsky and Breton; Leon Trotsky, You Must Not Whisper; Leon Trotsky, Difficulties With Diego.

Revolutionary History Vol 7 No 2, 1999, ISSN 0953-2382 includes regular features: Editorial; Work in Progress; Book Reviews; Obituaries; Reader's Notes.

230 x 145 mm. 315 pages
ISBN. 9781899438327
1999
Price: £14.95

FROM SYNDICALISM TO TROTSKYISM
Writings of Alfred and Marguerite Rosmer
Edited by Al Richardson

Explores a political evolution that lead from syndicalism, through orthodox communism to dissident communism. There is a wide selection of the Rosmers' writings, including articles and letters on the building a revolutionary opposition within the French trade union movement, on the politics of internationalism during the First World War, on the role of trade unions within the Communist International, on the degeneration of the Soviet Union and the official Communist movement, on working with Trotsky to construct a revolutionary alternative to Stalinism and on the rejuvenation of revolutionary politics after the Second World War.

Contents: Editorial; Writings of Alfred and Marguerite Rosmer; I: Overviews; II: Syndicalism; III: War; IV: Comintern; V: Transition; VI: Trotskyism; VII: After Trotsky.

Revolutionary History Vol 7 No 4, 2000, ISSN 0953-2382 includes regular features: Editorial; Work in Progress; Book Reviews; Obituaries; Reader's Notes.

A5 315 pages
ISBN. 9781899438358
2000
Price: £12.95

MUTINY
Disaffection and Unrest in the Armed Forces
Edited by Al Richardson

Essays on the cohesion of the armed forces, Marxism and military thinking, mutinies in Eastern Europe; dissent in the British armed forces; communist subversion and disaffection in the in the Second World. These essays draw together the experiences of working-class and peasant mutinies and disturbances during capitalist wars, unrest that was not only a result of war-weariness and pacifism, but also of conscious political opposition. In addition to the descriptions of disaffection in the armed forces during the First and Second World Wars, we also present material that investigates the relationship between socialism and militarism, an intriguing British 'Red Officer Course' from 1920, and a secret Communist International document on work within armed forces. An extensive bibliography will help readers with further study.

Contents: Editorial I: Mutiny and the Cohesion of the Armed Forces ; Ted Crawford, Mutiny and the Cohesion of the Armed Forces; Julian Putkowski, Observations on Mutinies II: Marxists and Military Thinking ; Ian Birchall, The Enigma of Kersausie: Engels in June 1848; Karl Radek, Marxism and the Problems of War III: Mutinies in Eastern Europe; Christian Rakovsky, The Origins of the Potemkin Mutiny (1905); Rémi Adam, 1917: The Revolt of the Russian Soldiers in France; Rémi Adam, The Bolshevik Revolution As Seen Through the Eyes of the Soldiers of the Russian Expeditionary Corps in France; Tico Jossifort, The Revolt at Radomir; The Black Sea Revolt IV: Disaffection and Dissent in the British Armed Forces; Julian Putkowski, Mutiny in India in 1919; Report on Revolutionary Organisations: Red Officer Course V: Comintern Work in Western Armed Forces in the 1930s; Communist International, Work in the Army (Introduction by David McKnight) VI: Disaffection in the Army in the Second World War ; David Renton, Bread and Freedom; Julian Putkowski interviews Dave Wallis; Swimming Against the Tide: Duncan Hallas on his Experiences in Egypt.

Revolutionary History Vol 8 No 2, 2002, ISSN 0953-2382 includes regular features: Editorial; Work in Progress; Book Reviews; Obituaries; Reader's Notes.

A5 308 pages
ISBN. 9781899438396
2002
Price: £14.95

VICTOR SERGE: THE CENTURY OF THE UNEXPECTED
Essays on Revolution and Counter-Revolution
Edited by Al Richardson

An anthology featuring biographical and literary essays on Victor Serge and three long essays by him. Serge's `Lenin in 1917' (1924), is a vivid exposition of the development of Lenin's political thought between the February and the October Revolutions. Serge illustrates the interaction between Lenin's analysis of events and his direction of the Bolsheviks' activities, in a manner which few writers have attempted, and in which even fewer have succeeded. `The Class Struggle in the Chinese Revolution' (1927), is both an incisive investigation of the revolutionary upheavals in China during the mid-1920s, and a powerful indictment of the disastrous policies of the Communist International under the direction of Bukharin and Stalin. `Planned Economies and Democracy' (1944), is a probing investigation into the future of Europe and the Soviet Union, and shows that the dilemma of a controlled economy versus individual freedom is by no means new. The collapse of the Soviet bloc has vindicated Serge's contention that workers' democracy is an essential component of a planned economy.

Contents: Editorial; Victor Serge: Lenin in 1917; Victor Serge: The Class Struggle in the Chinese Revolution; Richard Greeman: The Victor Serge Affair and the French Literary Left; Ernest Rogers: Serge, Poretsky, Etienne. A Paris hotel 1937; Victor Serge: Planned Economies and Democracy, 1941-1947; Julian Gorkin: The Last Years of Victor Serge, 1941-1947.

Revolutionary History Vol 5 No 3, 1994, ISSN 0953-2382 includes regular features: Editorial; Work in Progress; Book Reviews; Obituaries; Reader's Notes.

A5 288 pages
ISBN. 9780955112768
1994

Price: £13.95

BEYOND THE FRAGMENTS
Feminism and the Making of Socialism

by Sheila Rowbotham, Lynne Segal and Hilary Wainwright

Critical and constructive strategies for feminist and socialist organization, drawn from experiences in 1970s Britain.

223x142 mm. 286 pp.
ISBN. 0850362547
1979 4th impression. Paperback

Price: £9.95

THE POVERTY OF THEORY

E. P. Thompson

A socialist humanist critique of dogmatic Marxism: and of Althusser in particular. "There can be no doubt that The Poverty of Theory is an essay that will have lasting impact. It will resonate throughout discussions of history, Marxist theory and socialist politics." Media: Culture and Society
223x142mm 303pp 2nd edition
0850364469
1995 paperback
Price: £12.95

THE PHILOSOPHY OF PRAXIS

Adolfo Sanchez Vazquez

A study of Marx's development of the concept of praxis and its political consequences.

223x142mm 388pp
ISBN. 0850362164
1966 Paperback

Rights: Europe only: from Monthly Review Press USA

Price: £14.95

THE PHILOSOPHY OF PRAXIS

Adolfo Sanchez Vazquez

0850362032
1966 Hardback
Rights: Europe only: from Monthly Review Press USA

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Price: £25.00

ART AND SOCIETY
Essays in Marxist Aesthetics

Alfredo Sanchez Vazquez

Vazquez grasps not only Marx's views on art but also on labour alienation and the complex relation between the world of ideas and the world of material production.

223x142mm 286pp
0850362199
1973 Paperback

Europe only: from Monthly Review Press

Price: £9.95

ART AND SOCIETY
Essays in Marxist Aesthetics

Alfredo Sanchez Vazquez

223x142mm 286pp
0850361850
1973 Hardback

Europe only: from Monthly Review Press

See above for details.
Price: £20.00