This book brings together key writings by major revolutionary activists and thinkers. As such, it is very different from the usual collections of articles by academics who themselves have no experience of revolutionary struggles. This book is a mirror of Marxist thinking which has come out of such struggles - in a century that has experienced an unparalled upsurge of people's war against repressive regimes. It brings together pieces by Marx and Lenin.

This book presents a comprehensive analysis of the political thought of Joseph Stalin. Making full use of the documentation that has recently become available, including Stalin's private library with his handwritten margin notes, the book provides many insights on Stalin, and also on western and Russian Marxist intellectual traditions. Overall, the book argues that Stalin's political thought is not primarily indebted to the Russian autocratic tradition, but belongs to a tradition of revolutionary patriotism that stretches back through revolutionary Marxism to Jacobin thought in the French Revolution. It makes interesting comparisons between Stalin, Lenin, Bukharin and Trotsky, and explains a great deal about the mindset of those brought up in the Stalinist era, and about the era's many key problems, including the industrial revolution from above, socialist cultural policy, Soviet treatment of nationalities, pre-war and Cold War foreign policy, and the purges.

War and Revolution identifies and takes to task a reactionary trend among contemporary historians, one that’s grown increasingly apparent in recent years. It’s a revisionist tendency discernible in the work of authors such as Ernst Nolte, who traces the impetus behind the Holocaust to the excesses of the Russian Revolution; or François Furet, who links the Stalinist purges to an “illness” originating with the French Revolution. The intention of these revisionists is to eradicate the revolutionary tradition. Their true motives have little to do with the quest for a greater understanding of the past, but lie in the climate of the present day and the ideological needs of the political classes, as is most clearly seen now in the work of the Anglophone imperial revivalists Paul Johnson and Niall Ferguson. In this vigorous riposte to those who would denigrate the history of emancipatory struggle, Losurdo captivates the reader with a tour de force account of modern revolt, providing a new perspective on the English, American, French and twentieth-century revolutions.

"This book provides a concise and instructive review of the revolutions of the twentieth century, with separate chapters on the Russian, Chinese, Guinea-Bissau, and Vietnamese revolutions, and examines the various currents of Marxism active in the revolutions of our times. A second section is devoted to the United States, and provides a survey of the class forces in American history as well as the authors' ideas on the objects and means of an American Revolution."--Publisher's web-site.

The first major social revolution of the twentieth century, the Mexican Revolution was visually documented in technologically novel ways and to an unprecedented degree during its initial armed phase (1910–21) and the subsequent years of reconstruction (1921–40). Offering a sweeping and compelling new account of this iconic revolution, The Mexican Revolution on the World Stage reveals its profound impact on both global cinema and intellectual thought in and beyond Mexico. Focusing on the period from 1940 to 1970, Adela Pineda Franco examines a group of North American, European, and Latin American filmmakers and intellectuals who mined this extensive visual archive to produce politically engaged cinematic works that also reflect and respond to their own sociohistorical contexts. The author weaves together multilayered analysis of individual films, the history of their production and reception, and broader intellectual developments to illuminate the complex relationship between culture and revolution at the onset of World War II, during the Cold War, and amid the anti-systemic movements agitating Latin America in the 1960s. Ambitious in scope, this book charts an innovative transnational history of not only the visual representation but also the very idea of revolution.

What would happen if we could stroll through the revolutionary history of the 20th century and, without any fear of the possible responses, ask the main protagonists - from Lenin to Che Guevara, from Alexandra Kollontai to Ulrike Meinhof - seemingly naïve questions about love? Although all important political and social changes of the 20th century included heated debates on the role of love, it seems that in the 21st century of new technologies of the self (Grindr, Tinder, online dating, etc.) we are faced with a hyperinflation of sex, not love. By going back to the sexual revolution of the October Revolution and its subsequent repression, to Che's dilemma between love and revolutionary commitment and to the period of '68 (from communes to terrorism) and its commodification in late capitalism, the Croatian philosopher Srecko Horvat gives a possible answer to the question of why it is that the most radical revolutionaries like Lenin or Che were scared of the radicality of love. What is so radical about a seemingly conservative notion of love and why is it anything but conservative? This short book is a modest contribution to the current upheavals around the world - from Tahrir to Taksim, from Occupy Wall Street to Hong Kong, from Athens to Sarajevo - in which the question of love is curiously, surprisingly, absent.

François Furet was acknowledged as the twentieth century's preeminent historian of the French Revolution. But years before his death, he turned his attention to the consequences and aftermath of another critical revolution—the Communist revolution. The result, Le passé d'une illusion, is a penetrating history of the ideological passions that have fueled and characterized the modern era. "This may well be the most illuminating study ever devoted to the question of appeal exerted not only by Communism but also by the Nazi and other fascist varieties of totalitarianism in this century."—Hilton Kramer, New Criterion "A subtle, nuanced but gripping study of the most pervasive and destructive illusion in the 20th century." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review "The Passing of an Illusion . . . is both a profound work of intellectual history that takes its place alongside other great studies of the leftist heresy . . . and a relentless diagnosis of the self-subversive risks that are inherent in democratic regimes. "—Roger Kaplan, Washington Times " A remarkable book. . . . Stimulating and challenging. . . . A man widely read in several languages, Furet clearly knew his way around 20th-century Europe, even unto the dark alleys that figure on no existing map. "—Mark Falcoff, Commentary "A history of ideas, this work is not for the faint of heart, yet those who challenge it will discover a signal contribution to the literature of Communism."—Booklist "Imperious and stunningly confident, grand in conception and expansive in manner, packed with fascinating detail and often incisive judgements."—John Dunn, Times Higher Education Supplement "The Passing of an Illusion is brilliant, and one would be hard pressed to find better writing of history than the first chapter, which traces the roots of modern political thinking back to the nineteenth century."—J. Arch Getty, Atlantic Monthly "A brilliant and important book. . . . The publication of the American edition makes accessible to the general reader the most thought-provoking historical assessment of communism in Europe to appear since its collapse."—Jeffrey Herf, Wall Street Journal François Furet (1927-1997), educator and author, was a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor and was elected, in 1997, to become one of the "Forty Immortals" of the Académie Française, the highest intellectual honor in France. His many books include Interpreting the French Revolution, Marx and the French Revolution, and Revolutionary France. Deborah Furet, his widow, collaborated with him on many projects.