The Verso Book of Dissent, Ed. Andrew Hsiao and Andrea Lim, Verso, 2010.
The Idea of Communism, Ed. Coustas Douzinas and Slavoj Žižek, Verso, 2010.
Stephen Colbert once famously said that “reality has a liberal bias.” It is possible however that reality is even more radical than that. The events of the past couple years would seem to play that hypothesis out, from the economic crisis of 2008 to the blatantly ideological cuts of the “austerity” era in Anglophonic countries exposing the inequalities and incoherencies of neoliberal capitalism. The time has never been better for intelligent Leftist writing, and there are few better than the venerable Verso imprint.
Two books that have made welcome appearances in my mailbox lately have been The Verso Book of Dissent and The Idea of Communism. Each in their own way addresses the questions of inequality, and the need for practical action to create a fairer, more equitable world.