Democratic Socialists of AmericaBooks by DSA members
Once a year we present a list of all the books published by DSA members in the past three years. If we missed yours, please write to dlmagazine@demleft.dsausa.org Enjoy! —The editors.
Non-fiction
Aronson, Ronald, We: Reviving Social Hope (University of Chicago Press, 2017). Hope is far more than a mood or feeling—it’s the very basis of social will and political action. A look at the movements around Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn as powerful examples of socially energized, politically determined forms of hope.
Brown, Jenny, Birth Strike: The Hidden Fight over Women’s Work (PM Press, 2019) With little access to childcare, family leave, health care, and with insufficient male participation, U.S. women are conducting a spontaneous birth strike.
Brown, Jenny, Without Apology: The Abortion Struggle Now (forthcoming, Verso, November 2019) An indispensable guide to abortion access in America, and a necessary argument for building a fighting feminist movement to advance reproductive freedom.
Buhle, Paul; Nance, Dave; and Max, Steve; illustrations by Noah Van Sciver, Eugene V. Debs, A Graphic Biography (Verso, 2019) A graphic biography of socialist labor legend Eugene V. Debs.
Das, Raju, Marxist Class Theory for a Skeptical World (Haymarket Books, 2018) A persuasive and thorough response to those fashionable social theorists who challenge both the explanatory and emancipatory power of ‘class.’
Davenport, Tim, and LeBlanc, Paul, The American Exceptionalism of Jay Lovestone and His Comrades, 1929-1940 (Haymarket Books, 2018). Lovestone and his comrades briefly controlled, and then were dramatically expelled from, the Communist Party of America; they later formed a new Communist political organization similar in its development, to the Trotskyist “Left Opposition.” The first in a six volume series examining the ideology of dissident Marxist movements in America.
Davenport, Tim, and Walters, David, co-editors, The Selected Works of Eugene V. Debs, Volume 1: Building Solidarity on the Tracks, 1877-1892 (Haymarket Books, 2019, No. 1 in a projected six-volume series).
De Lissovoy, Noah, editor, Marxisms and Education (Routledge, 2018) This volume in Routledge’s Social Theory and Education series re-articulates recent Marxist scholarship in education.
Ellis, Frederick, 1908 edition of “DEBS: His Life, Writings and Speeches,” a facsimile available for $38.95 from frederick658@hotmail.com.
Frittmann, Pete, Socialism or Extinction, The Choice is Ours in an AI Dominated Future (Amazon.com, 2018)
Kay, William Walter, Malthus to Mifepristone: A Primer on the Population Control Movement A history of the population control movement from 1798 to 1998, focusing on the eugenicist, racist and economic motivations of elite groups driving and funding population control, and profiling the leading organizations of the modern population control movement. (Amazon.com, 2018).
Haynes, Jay, and Weisman, Eleanor, eds., The Role of the Arts in Learning: Cultivating Landscapes of Democracy (Routledge, 2018) Grounded in philosophy from John Dewey and Maxine Greene, this book provides examples of the imaginative ways the arts and sciences intersect with democratic learning and civic engagement. Chapters focus on education in relation to diversity, apprenticeship, and civic engagement; neuroscience and cognition; urban aesthetic experience and learning; and science and art intelligence.
Howley, Kevin, Drones: Media Discourse and the Public Imagination (Peter Lang, 2018) Stories about drones—at once anxious and hopeful, fearful and awe-inspired—are emblematic of the profound ambivalence that frequently accompanies the introduction of new technologies.
Ketchum, Christopher, This Land: How Cowboys, Capitalism, and Corruption are Ruining the American West (forthcoming, Viking Press, 2019).
Kirsch, Daniel, Sold My Soul for a Student Loan: Higher Education and the Political Economy of the Future (ABC-CLIO, 2019). A look at how student debt became commonplace and what the long-term effects might be — to undermine the real value of higher education in our democracy.
LaBotz, Dan, and Le Trehondat, Patrick, Le nouveau populisme américain: résistances et alternatives à Trump, (Editorions Syllepse, 2018).
Leary, James P., Folksongs of Another America: Field Recordings from the Upper Midwest, 1937-1946. (University of Wisconsin Press, 2018). Updated edition and companion website with sound files featuring 187 songs and tunes in 25 languages from indigenous and immigrant rural and working class people in America’s Upper Midwest during the 1930s and 1940s.
James P. Leary, Rickaby, Franz, and Gretchen Dykstra, Pinery Boys: Songs and Songcatching in the Lumberjack Era (University of Wisconsin Press, 2017). An expanded new edition of Ballads and Songs of the Shanty-Boy (1926), the first full exploration of woods workers’ songs.
Lowney, John, Jazz Internationalism: Literary Afro-Modernism and the Cultural Politics of Black Music (University of Illinois Press, 2017). How Claude McKay, Ann Petry, Langston Hughes, and many other writers employed jazz as a mode of artistic expression to explore the possibilities and challenges of black internationalism.
McKanan, Dan, Eco-Alchemy: Anthroposophy and the History and Future of Environmentalism (University of California Press, 2017). A historical and ethnographic study of the environmental movement, focused on the influences of anthroposophy and its founder, Rudolf Steiner, whose holistic worldview, rooted in esoteric spirituality, inspired the movement.
Messner, Michael, Guys Like Me: Five Wars, Five Veterans for Peace (Rutgers University Press, 2018). Profiles of five ordinary men who have done extraordinary work as peace activists: World War II veteran Ernie Sanchez, Korean War veteran Woody Powell, Vietnam veteran Gregory Ross, Gulf War veteran Daniel Craig, and Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran Jonathan Hutto.
Patel, Raj, and Moore, Jason W., A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet (University of California Press, 2017). Bringing the latest ecological research together with histories of colonialism, indigenous struggles, slave revolts, and other rebellions and uprisings, Patel and Moore demonstrate that throughout history, crises have always prompted fresh strategies to make the world cheap and safe for capitalism.
Schwartzman, Peter, and Schwartzman, David, The Earth is Not for Sale: A Path Out of Fossil Capitalism to the Other World That is Still Possible. (World Scientific, 2019) Outline of the solutions already in hand to social and economic inequalities and the threat of climate catastrophe.
Slaughter, Jane, Secrets of a Successful Organizer, co-authored with Alexandra Bradbury and Mark Brenner (Labor Notes, 2016). A guide to how to identify the key issues in your workplace, build campaigns to tackle them, anticipate management’s tricks and traps, and inspire your co-workers to stand together despite their fears … in short, how to fight back where you work and win.
Spencer, Keith, A People’s History of Silicon Valley (Eyewear Publishing, 2018) A history of the people exploited, displaced, and made obsolete by the tech industry, from the colonization of the Bay Area to the present day.
Stolz, Ted, Becoming Marxist: Studies in Philosophy, Struggle, and Endurance (Brill, 2019) A series of studies that take up the importance of philosophy for the development of an open and critical Marxism.
Walzer, Michael, A Foreign Policy for the Left (Yale University Press, 2018) and Political Action, A Practical Guide to Movement Politics, with an introduction by Jon Wiener and a new preface by the author (New York Review of Books Press, 2019). Written during the Nixon years, still timely.
Fiction and poetry
Casagranda, Roy, The Blood Throne of Caria, feminist and internationalist historical fiction set in the 5th century BCE.
Feffer, John, Splinterlands (Haymarket Books, 2016) Julian West, looking backwards from 2050, tries to understand why the world and his family have fallen apart.
Feffer, John, Frostlands (Haymarket Books, 2018) It’s 2051, and Arcadia is under attack. As the stand-alone sequel to Splinterlands begins, the sustainable compound in what was once Vermont is on high alert.
Feffer, John, Aftershock: A Journey Through Eastern Europe’s Broken Dreams (Zed, 2017). Twenty-five years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, John Feffer returns to Eastern Europe to find a region embittered by broken promises and riven by right-wing nationalism.
Foster, Katie, Major Diamonds Knights and Knaves A poetry project modeled after a deck of cards. (Trident Press, 2018)
Henson, Michael, A Small Room with Trouble on My Mind and Other Stories (Bottom Dog Press, 2016), a novella and stories about working class life among urban Appalachian migrants. The Dead Singing: Poems (Mongrel Empire Press, 2016), Appalachian landscape and beings. Maggie Boylan (Swallow Press/Ohio University Press, 2018), linked stories of the meth and oxy wreckage in Appalachia
Olds, Lee, Summer of Love: Happenstance, A Trilogy, myriad characters clash and combust in Haight Ashbury (Amazon.com, 2017).
Piascik, Andy, In Motion, “a novel about love and solidarity” (Sunshine Publishing, 2016).
Post, Dianne, Blood and Honor and Twisted Justice: feminist thrillers, available at diannepost.com or diannepost.net.
Silliman, Ron, You, a long poem, translated into the French by Martin Richet (Vies Paralleles, Brussels, 2016 and if wants to be the same as is: Essential Poems of David Bromige, with Jack Krick and Bob Perelman, co-editors (New Star Books, Vancouver, 2018)
Zink, David C.A., A Hundred Lifetimes, an eco-socialist science fiction novel of climate change (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016).
