In 1848, Karl Marx declared that a communist specter was haunting Europe. In 1994, Jacques Derrida considered how the spectre of Marx would haunt the post-Cold War world. In Specters of Revolt, Gilman-Opalsky argues that the world is haunted by revolt, by the possibility of events that interrupt and disrupt the world, that throw its reality and justice into question. But recent revolt is neither decisively communist nor decisively Marxist. Gilman-Opalsky develops a theory of revolt that accounts for its diverse critical content about autonomy, everyday life, anxiety, experience, knowledge, and possibility. The 1994 uprising of the Mexican Zapatistas set the stage for new forms of revolt against a newly expanded power of capital. In the 20 years since, including the recent phase of global uprisings that began in 2008 with the Greek revolts, insurrection has spoken in the "Arab Spring" in Spain, Turkey, Brazil, and in the U.S. in Occupy Wall Street, Ferguson, and Baltimore, among other places. In light of recent global uprisings, Gilman-Opalsky aims to move beyond the critical theory of revolt to an understanding of revolt as theory itself. Making use of diverse sources from Raoul Vaneigem and Félix Guattari to Julia Kristeva and Raya Dunayevskaya, Spectres of Revolt explores upheaval as thinking, the intellect of insurrection, and philosophy from below.

In 1848, Karl Marx declared that a communist specter was haunting Europe. In 1994, Jacques Derrida considered how the spectre of Marx would haunt the post-Cold War world. In Specters of Revolt, Gilman-Opalsky argues that the world is haunted by revolt, by the possibility of events that interrupt and disrupt the world, that throw its reality and justice into question. But recent revolt is neither decisively communist nor decisively Marxist. Gilman-Opalsky develops a theory of revolt that accounts for its diverse critical content about autonomy, everyday life, anxiety, experience, knowledge, and possibility. The 1994 uprising of the Mexican Zapatistas set the stage for new forms of revolt against a newly expanded power of capital. In the 20 years since, including the recent phase of global uprisings that began in 2008 with the Greek revolts, insurrection has spoken in the "Arab Spring" in Spain, Turkey, Brazil, and in the U.S. in Occupy Wall Street, Ferguson, and Baltimore, among other places. In light of recent global uprisings, Gilman-Opalsky aims to move beyond the critical theory of revolt to an understanding of revolt as theory itself. Making use of diverse sources from Raoul Vaneigem and Félix Guattari to Julia Kristeva and Raya Dunayevskaya, Spectres of Revolt explores upheaval as thinking, the intellect of insurrection, and philosophy from below.

Prodigiously influential, Jacques Derrida gave rise to a comprehensive rethinking of the basic concepts and categories of Western philosophy in the latter part of the twentieth century, with writings central to our understanding of language, meaning, identity, ethics and values. In 1993, a conference was organized around the question, 'Whither Marxism?’, and Derrida was invited to open the proceedings. His plenary address, 'Specters of Marx', delivered in two parts, forms the basis of this book. Hotly debated when it was first published, a rapidly changing world and world politics have scarcely dented the relevance of this book.

Exploring the meanings and powers of love from ancient Greece to the present day, Richard Gilman-Opalsky argues that what is called “love” by the best thinkers who have approached the subject is in fact the beating heart of communism—understood as a way of living, not as a form of government. Along the way, he reveals with clarity that the capitalist way of assigning value to things is incapable of appreciating what humans value most. Capitalism cannot value the experiences and relationships that make our lives worth living and can only destroy love by turning it into a commodity. The Communism of Love follows the struggles of love in different contexts of race, class, gender, and sexuality, and shows how the aspiration for love is as close as we may get to a universal communist aspiration.

A bold new history showing that the fear of Communism was a major factor in the outbreak of World War II The Spectre of War looks at a subject we thought we knew—the roots of the Second World War—and upends our assumptions with a masterful new interpretation. Looking beyond traditional explanations based on diplomatic failures or military might, Jonathan Haslam explores the neglected thread connecting them all: the fear of Communism prevalent across continents during the interwar period. Marshalling an array of archival sources, including records from the Communist International, Haslam transforms our understanding of the deep-seated origins of World War II, its conflicts, and its legacy. Haslam offers a panoramic view of Europe and northeast Asia during the 1920s and 1930s, connecting fascism’s emergence with the impact of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. World War I had economically destabilized many nations, and the threat of Communist revolt loomed large in the ensuing social unrest. As Moscow supported Communist efforts in France, Spain, China, and beyond, opponents such as the British feared for the stability of their global empire, and viewed fascism as the only force standing between them and the Communist overthrow of the existing order. The appeasement and political misreading of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy that followed held back the spectre of rebellion—only to usher in the later advent of war. Illuminating ideological differences in the decades before World War II, and the continuous role of pre- and postwar Communism, The Spectre of War provides unprecedented context for one of the most momentous calamities of the twentieth century.

A defense of the radical imagination from a scholar of social movements. Political theorist and philosopher Richard Gilman-Opalsky’s Imaginary Power, Real Horizons is a tribute to the imagination and to its necessity for liberatory struggle. “‘Impractical’ is the name given to anyone who imagines something radically other than what exists,” he writes. However, many things—such as the abolition of slavery—were dismissed as impractical before they came to be. In a warm, plainspoken manner, these essays chart the affects of creativity and utopianism through topics as varied as the cyclical nature of popular movements; the international history of May Day; the experience of teaching political theory and Marxism in contemporary China; and the revolutionary aspirations of Free Jazz. The human imagination is a real, world-creating power, and those who would declare otherwise have a poor understanding of history. Imaginary Power, Real Horizons is a call to action for those who would dare to dream of a society organized by a different logic than capitalism.

Liberating Revolution challenges the idea that we understand what revolution is. All current understandings of revolution are different ways of portraying the state. To liberate revolution, we must explain radical change without determining its course or limiting what it can do. Nathan Eckstrand reviews earlier theories of revolution from history—social contract theory, Marxism, Hegelianism, liberalism, communism, totalitarianism, and Machiavellism—and studies how they describe political change. He then puts forth a new theory of change called Dynamic Anarchism, drawing on Event Ontology's discussions of radical change, systems theory's understanding of dynamic and adaptive systems, and anarchism's attempts to think of politics independent of the state. In its final chapter, Liberating Revolution advises how to produce radical change effectively. A valuable contribution to the ongoing discussion of how best to understand change given discoveries both microscopic and global, this book offers useful ideas to students curious about why revolutions often fail to achieve their goals or to anyone learning how change is depicted in political theory.