James P. Cannon and the Origins of the American Revolutionary Left, 1890-1928


Book Description

Bryan D. Palmer's award-winning study of James P. Cannon's early years (1890-1928) details how the life of a Wobbly hobo agitator gave way to leadership in the emerging communist underground of the 1919 era. This historical drama unfolds alongside the life experiences of a native son of United States radicalism, the narrative moving from Rosedale, Kansas to Chicago, New York, and Moscow. Written with panache, Palmer's richly detailed book situates American communism's formative decade of the 1920s in the dynamics of a specific political and economic context. Our understanding of the indigenous currents of the American revolutionary left is widened, just as appreciation of the complex nature of its interaction with international forces is deepened.




The History of American Trotskyism


Book Description

"Trotskyism is not a new movement, a new doctrine", Cannon says, "but the restoration, the revival of genuine Marxism as it was expounded and practiced in the Russian revolution and in the early days of the Communist International". In this series of twelve talks given in 1942, James P. Cannon recounts an important chapter in the efforts to build a proletarian party in the United States.




The First Ten Years of American Communism


Book Description

"Stalinism has worked mightily to obliterate the honorable record of American communism in its pioneer days. Yet the Communist Party wrote such a chapter too, and the young militants of the new generation ought to know about it and claim it for their own. It belongs to them." -- James P. Cannon, 1962.







Socialism on Trial


Book Description







U.S. Trotskyism 1928-1965. Part II: Endurance


Book Description

U.S. Trotskyism 1928-1965. Part II: Endurance: The Coming American Revolution is the second of a documentary trilogy on a revolutionary socialist split-off from the U.S. Communist Party, reflecting Leon Trotsky’s confrontation with Stalinism in the global Communist movement. Spanning 1941 to 1956, this volume surveys the Second World War (internationally and on the 'homefront'), the momentous post-war strike wave, ongoing efforts to comprehend and struggle against racism, as well as the early years of the Cold War and anti-Communist repression in the United States. Also covered are internal debates and splits among Trotskyists themselves, including a far-reaching split in the international Trotskyist movement (the Fourth International) in the face of a persistent and expanding Stalinism. Scholars and activists will find much of interest in these primary sources.







Marxism and Historical Practice (Vol. II)


Book Description

The two volumes of Marxism and Historical Practice bring together a wide range of essays written by one of the major Marxist historians of the last fifty years. Collected in Volume II, Interventions and Appreciations, are articles and reviews capturing the breadth of Palmer’s interests as a radical historian. Cultural forms and representational productions are analysed; political readings of historiography and pioneering historical practice provided. Themes as diverse as the analytic and political contributions of Eric Hobsbawm and E.P. Thompson, the conflicted legacies of American Trotskyism, and the representation of class politics in Scorsese’s Gangs of New York are covered.




Living for Change


Book Description

No one can tell in advance what form a movement will take. Grace Lee Boggs’s fascinating autobiography traces the story of a woman who transcended class and racial boundaries to pursue her passionate belief in a better society. Now with a new foreword by Robin D. G. Kelley, Living for Change is a sweeping account of a legendary human rights activist whose network included Malcolm X and C. L. R. James. From the end of the 1930s, through the Cold War, the Civil Rights era, and the rise of the Black Panthers to later efforts to rebuild crumbling urban communities, Living for Change is an exhilarating look at a remarkable woman who dedicated her life to social justice.