Alex Callinicos

I picked this up to prep myself for starting a Socio PhD in the fall, and while Callinicos is certainly very thorough in tying together relevant authors, ideas, schools, and general movements, this book wasn't the easiest to just sit down and understand. It's densely written, and I'm going to say that this isn't a true "introduction"-- I suspect that it would be ideal for, say, a graduate seminar, but as a literate and intelligent person who just doesn't have background with the topic, it wasn't as self-explanatory as I was hoping it would be.

That being said, while I did skim the final 1/3 of this book, I suspect it'll be one that I return to once I'm in school and in conversations where this kind of subject matter comes up more often. Well-organized, helpful reading lists in the back, and the index looks useful. So, while it wasn't my piece of pie this time around, overall it does what it needs to do.… (mehr)

Despite a life-long left-leaning political inclination, it is only recently that I've started to engage with the underlying theory and philosophy of socialism. This 1983 review of the socialist movement from inception to contemporary position is necessarily brief, given its seventy-seven pages, but nontheless provides a clear and inciteful introduction.

The betrayal by Stalin of the Russian socialist revolution isn't news to me, but the nature of that betrayal in his formation of a state capitalist economy is, and makes sense of the USSR's and China's position on the world stage, and moreso that of the present-day Russian Federation and China.

The East-West tensions that Callinicos saw at the time as possibly moving towards another world war were, it seems to me, to some extent resolved by the acceptance of global capitalism by Gorbachev and Yeltsin in Russia, and more gradually in China by its increasing openness to global markets. However, it feels like those tensions are again rising due to the global financial crisis, the typical reaction of scapegoating an external threat and the increasing alienaton and disenranchisement of the mass of people who are afflicted by their governements with policies of ideological austerity, widening the gap between rich and poor.

The tensions are already playing out in increasing militarism and conflict. My hope is that the majority of people won't be drawn to the phony patriatism and jingoism that seems rife amongst the political classes around the world and that an escalation of military conflict is averted.… (mehr)