Here are 100 books that Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism fans have personally recommended if you like
Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism.
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In the early days of my PhD degree at King’s College London, my research focused very much on developing a Marxist theory of International Relations. From this, I have learned invaluable knowledge that informs my post-PhD writings. These focus more on the study of US-China relations in the context of a changing world order. I have always been passionate about these subjects in so far as they allow me to make sense of the big picture.
There is a consensus among Western elites that the post-Cold War order is over and that a new order is emerging. Richard Sakwa’s book, with an intellectually rich yet accessible writing style, helps readers understand how, in only three decades–nothing in the whole history of the world and a short time from an international order perspective–we have moved from the announcement of the end of history and a new world order to the unraveling of it.
Sakwa argues that the years following the end of the Cold War did not represent a lasting accord between great powers and that the causes of these have to be found in the underlining intolerance of the West’s ideology of “democratic internationalism.”
This meant that after the Cold War there simply was a tactical pause that eventually ushered in the ‘Second Cold War’ we currently find ourselves in. Sakwa wrote a courageous account of…
The end of the Cold War was an opportunity-our inability to seize it has led to today's renewed era of great power competition
"An eloquent and persuasive argument about how the world squandered the promise of the end of the Cold War."-Maria Lipman, Foreign Affairs
The year 1989 heralded a unique prospect for an enduring global peace as harsh ideological divisions and conflicts began to be resolved. Now, three decades on, that peace has been lost. With war in Ukraine and increasing tensions between China, Russia, and the West, great power politics once again dominates the world stage. But could…
In the early days of my PhD degree at King’s College London, my research focused very much on developing a Marxist theory of International Relations. From this, I have learned invaluable knowledge that informs my post-PhD writings. These focus more on the study of US-China relations in the context of a changing world order. I have always been passionate about these subjects in so far as they allow me to make sense of the big picture.
As a student of international order, I enjoy reading history from a very long-term perspective. This book – which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998 – offers just that by providing an overview of the origins of society and relations of power, answering big questions about why there are socio-economic differences between regions of the world, the impact of geography and nature on technological development, and the implications of human footprint on the planet.
While this book is a bit of an outlier in this list when it comes to US-China relations, it helps us think in terms of how US hegemony, like the overtake of Europe over Asia, has mostly been an accident in history—and a temporary one, as China’s rise shows.
'A book of big questions, and big answers' Yuval Noah Harari, bestselling author of Sapiens
Why has human history unfolded so differently across the globe? And what can it teach us about our current crisis?
Jared Diamond puts the case that geography and biogeography, not race, moulded the contrasting fates of Europeans, Asians, Native Americans, sub-Saharan Africans, and aboriginal Australians.
An ambitious synthesis of history, biology, ecology and linguistics, Guns, Germs and Steel is a ground-breaking and humane work of popular science that can provide expert insight into our modern world.
In the early days of my PhD degree at King’s College London, my research focused very much on developing a Marxist theory of International Relations. From this, I have learned invaluable knowledge that informs my post-PhD writings. These focus more on the study of US-China relations in the context of a changing world order. I have always been passionate about these subjects in so far as they allow me to make sense of the big picture.
This is a must-read for all those interested in understanding US-China relations. It offers a comprehensive and objective account of the relationship from 1972–a crucial year due to the rapprochement–until after the end of the Cold War.
The author does an excellent job of capturing the main events and developing a rich narrative while maintaining an agile and accessible writing style. Although this book has been published decades ago, its key word–“fragile”–continues to capture well a relationship which has been characterised by a long series of highs and lows.
President Nixon's historic trip to China in February 1972 marked the beginning of a new era in Sino-American relations. For the first time since 1949, the two countries established high-level official contacts and transformed their relationship from confrontation to collaboration. Over the subsequent twenty years, however, U.S.-China relations have experienced repeated cycles of progress, stalemate, and crisis, with the events in Tiananmen Square in June 1989 the most recent and disruptive example. Paradoxically, although relations between the two countries are vastly more extensive today than they were twenty years ago, they remain highly fragile.
It didn’t begin with Donald Trump. When the Republican Party lost five straight presidential elections during the 1930s and 1940s, three things happened: (1) Republicans came to believe that presidential elections are rigged; (2) Conspiracy theories arose and were believed; and (3) The presidency was elevated to cult-like status.
In the early days of my PhD degree at King’s College London, my research focused very much on developing a Marxist theory of International Relations. From this, I have learned invaluable knowledge that informs my post-PhD writings. These focus more on the study of US-China relations in the context of a changing world order. I have always been passionate about these subjects in so far as they allow me to make sense of the big picture.
A good book should be able to convey much knowledge, in an accessible manner, but also one clear perspective. Kissinger’s book on world order – informed by the pragmatism that characterized the academic views of this controversial leader with a tainted legacy – provides that.
The main claim of the book that competing orders exist – a Chinese one, an Islamic one, a European one, etc.– should be read in Western policy circles. The war in Ukraine and the different reactions of countries from around the world compared to the G7 vindicate some of the arguments made in this book.
The US-led post-WWII order is representative of only a relatively small chunk of the world, and it needs to learn how to dialogue with other orders for the sake of global peace.
In World Order, Henry Kissinger - one of the leading practitioners of world diplomacy and author of On China - makes his monumental investigation into the 'tectonic plates' of global history and state relations.
World Order is the summation of Henry Kissinger's thinking about history, strategy and statecraft. As if taking a perspective from far above the globe, it examines the great tectonic plates of history and the motivations of nations, explaining the attitudes that states and empires have taken to the rest of the world from the formation of Europe to our own times.
As Iago says in Shakespeare’s Othello, “I am nothing if not critical,” and regardless of what he meant, it applies to me - my intelligence works best at scrutinizing things for their significance. I studied science, worked in the financial sector, read fiction, watched cinema, and developed a sense of the interconnectedness of things. If the connections existed, I thought, there could be no one way of approaching anything; all intellectual paths were valid and the only criterion of value was that it must be intelligent. My book tries to stick to this since a writer may hold any opinions, but he or she must show intelligence.
My adult life can be characterized as a quest to make sense of the larger ecosystem around me, chiefly society, politics, and culture, within a single framework since knowledge is power; knowing and relating is what makes me strong.
I was stunned by the connections that Wallerstein makes across so many disciplines, and how his book empowered me in interactions with the culturally educated and politically knowledgeable.
In World-Systems Analysis, Immanuel Wallerstein provides a concise and accessible introduction to the comprehensive approach that he pioneered thirty years ago to understanding the history and development of the modern world. Since Wallerstein first developed world-systems analysis, it has become a widely utilized methodology within the historical social sciences and a common point of reference in discussions of globalization. Now, for the first time in one volume, Wallerstein offers a succinct summary of world-systems analysis and a clear outline of the modern world-system, describing the structures of knowledge upon which it is based, its mechanisms, and its future.
Fresh out of journalism school I stumbled on a strike at a machine shop in Pilsen, a neighborhood once home to Chicago’s most famous labor struggles, by then becoming a hip gentrified enclave. Drinking steaming atole with Polish, Mexican, and Puerto Rican workers in a frigid Chicago winter, I was captivated by the solidarity and determination to fight for their jobs and rights, in what appeared to be a losing battle. After covering labor struggles by Puerto Rican teachers, Mexican miners, Colombian bottlers, Chicago warehouse workers, and many others, my enthusiasm for such stories is constantly reignited -- by the workers fighting against all odds and the writers telling their stories, including those featured here.
Despite so much depressing evidence to the contrary, professor Robert Ovetz argues that global workers' struggle is being reborn from the ashes of the old trade union movement. In this collection, international labor experts explain how Argentine truckers, Puerto Rican teachers, Chinese migrant laborers, Turkish delivery drivers, and other workers are analyzing geopolitical dynamics and seizing the levers of power in new and effective ways. Packed with analysis and charts like the “Credible Strike Threats Scorecard,” this is a gold mine for labor geeks who refuse to give up hope of overturning global capitalism.
Rumours of the death of the global labour movement have been greatly exaggerated. Rising from the ashes of the old trade union movement, workers' struggle is being reborn from below.
By engaging in what Karl Marx called a workers' inquiry, workers and militant co-researchers are studying their working conditions, the technical composition of capital, and how to recompose their own power in order to devise new tactics, strategies, organisational forms and objectives. These workers' inquiries, from call centre workers to teachers, and adjunct professors, are re-energising unions, bypassing unions altogether or innovating new forms of workers' organisations.
We’ve all experienced the overwhelming level of political and social divisiveness in our country. This invisible “virus” of negativity is, in part, the result of the name-calling and heated rhetoric that has become commonplace among commentators and elected leaders alike.
My book provides a clear perspective on the historical and…
I have always been fascinated by the relationship between the concept of time, history, and politics. My first publications were in the philosophy of history. I started by translating some Left Hegelians. Then I moved toward Kant and Benjamin. My research background was constituted by the attempt to liberate Marxism from any kind of teleological philosophy of history. Recently, I began digging into concrete historical cases to extract political and legal categories. I’m interested in the reactivation of past possibilities to reconfigure the present and open alternative futures. I am now fortunate to teach courses on Temporalities and History in the History of Consciousness Department at UCSC.
The style of this book is clear, direct, and energetic.
Bensaid's book addresses the ideas of Karl Marx, demonstrating their continuing relevance in the contemporary world. It explores how Marx's theories can be applied to analyze and understand the complex dynamics of capitalist societies, making it a valuable resource for those seeking insights into our time's economic, social, and political issues.
The end of Soviet Socialism signalled to some observers that the ghost of Marx had finally been laid to rest. But history's refusal to grind to a halt and the global credit crisis that began in 2008 have rekindled interest in capitalism's most persistent critic. Written during the mid-nineties, a period of Western complacency and neo-liberal reaction, Marx for Our Times is a critical reading of dialectical materialism as a method of resistance. Without denying the contradictory character of Marx's thought, and with a sensitivity to the plurality of theories it has inspired, Daniel Bensaid sets out to discover what…
Since before I was a teenager, I have been painfully aware of two things: the society I am living in is an extremely racist one, and capitalism fosters egotism, greed, selfishness, and a degradation of what is best in life. Ever since then I have been pursuing the goal of envisioning, and in some way advancing, an alternative to both (which in my view are related). I have suggested these five books because they have given me much inspiration for pursuing this goal, difficult as it surely is. I hope they will prove to be for you as well.
This remarkable study, first published in Czechoslovakia in 1964 and translated into English in the 1970s, is one of the most profound studies of the Hegelian and Phenomenological dimensions of Marx’s work ever written.
It argues that daily life in capitalist modernity takes the alienated form of a “world of the pseudo-concrete,” in which possibilities for self-development and purposeful creation that is integral to humanity become radically suppressed. If you want to understand why the world is not as you wish it to be, read this book.
Kosik writes that the history of a text is in a certain sense the history of its interpretations. In the fifteen years that have passed since the first (Czech) edition of his Dialectics of the Concrete, this book has been widely read and interpreted throughout Europe, in diverse centers of scholarship as well as in private studies. A faithful English language edition is long overdue. This publication of KosIk's work will surely provoke a range of new interpretations. For its theme is the characterization of science and of rationality in the context of the social roots of science and the…
Being a Leftist, I started reading Capital as a student, back in the 1970s.I was impressed by Marx's analysis, emphasizing that capitalist relations of power appear as money generating more money, as a “thing” that functions as capital; furthermore, that credit functions as the most drastic form of money, so that the financial sphere is not a “parasitic” appendage of the “real economy”, but a mechanism for enforcing the “rules” of the system. As Professor of Political Economy since the late 1980s, I enjoy revealing to my students the structural contradictions of the system we live in. E.g., that the standard of living of the social majority (of the wage-earners) is (labour-)‘‘cost” of capital.
In a vivid and comprehensible way, Heinrich outlines the historical, economic, and social conditions for the emergence of Marx’s theory, the “Critique of Political Economy”.
He addresses its methodological foundations, and introduces the most important terms and concepts.
What actually is capitalism, and what is Marx’s dialectic all about? How is surplus value created? What is fetishism, and how does it relate to politics and the state?
Beyond that, Heinrich also asks about the topicality of Marx’s thought and the possibility of a “society beyond the commodity form”.
The global economic crisis and recession that began in 2008 had at least one unexpected outcome: a surge in sales of Karl Marx's Capital. Although mainstream economists and commentators once dismissed Marx's work as outmoded and flawed, some are begrudgingly acknowledging an analysis that sees capitalism as inherently unstable. And of course, there are those, like Michael Heinrich, who have seen the value of Marx all along, and are in a unique position to explain the intricacies of Marx's thought.
Heinrich's modern interpretation of Capital is now available to English-speaking readers for the first time. It has gone through nine…
Marxian Economics and its relevance to a better world and socialism has been my passion since I became an adult. My expertise in this subject, such as it is, has been sharpened by the study of Marx and Engels’ great works, but also by the efforts of so many others since; some of whom are included in my five best books. But above all, it is the knowledge that in this world of nearly 8 billion people, most do not have a happy and fulfilling life but face daily toil and struggle to live (and die). Humanity has the power and technology to do better; we just need to organise our social and governmental structures to achieve it.
Francis Wheen is a witty journalist who has written a short but revealing biography of Karl Marx. And in this book, he explains in no more than 100 pages, how Marx came to write his masterpiece, Das Kapital. He shows why Marx’s great treatise deserves to be read and understood.
In vivid detail, Francis Wheen tells the story of Das Kapital and Karl Marx’s twenty-year struggle to complete his unfinished masterpiece. Born in a two-room flat in London’s Soho amid political squabbles and personal tragedy, the first volume of Das Kapital was published in 1867, to muted praise. But after Marx’s death, the book went on to influence thinkers, writers, and revolutionaries, from George Bernard Shaw to V. I. Lenin, changing the direction of twentieth-century history. Wheen’s captivating, accessible book shows that, far from being a dry economic treatise, Das Kapital is like a vast Gothic novel whose heroes are…
