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On Imperialism: Volume 1
'The techniques of the original Cold War have been updated and adapted for a new enemy in a new century, but the political essence is the same. The U.S. and its allies still seek to maintain the overall stability and long-term viability of the imperialist world system. This system is under threat from China, which is coalescing forces throughout the world in support of a new, multipolar world order; by definition a negation of the U.S. project for military and economic control of the planet.' - Carlos Martinez
As global tensions continue to escalate, it is necessary to reassert the importance of anti-imperialist struggle in both the Global North and South. On Imperialism collects together essays and reviews from Ebb Magazine that deal with the urgency of this topic and all of its manifestations, from calls for a Green New Deal to the US' withdrawal from Afghanistan and the British left's inability to broach the question of imperialism at all.
Featuring writing by Louis Allday, Max Ajl, Yoseti Herrera Guitián, Alfie Hancox, Carlos Martinez, Henry Heller, Qiao Collective, Red Condor Collective, Edward Said, Marlon Ettinger, Lewis Hodder, and Matt Seidel.
As global tensions continue to escalate, it is necessary to reassert the importance of anti-imperialist struggle in both the Global North and South. On Imperialism collects together essays and reviews from Ebb Magazine that deal with the urgency of this topic and all of its manifestations, from calls for a Green New Deal to the US' withdrawal from Afghanistan and the British left's inability to broach the question of imperialism at all.
Featuring writing by Louis Allday, Max Ajl, Yoseti Herrera Guitián, Alfie Hancox, Carlos Martinez, Henry Heller, Qiao Collective, Red Condor Collective, Edward Said, Marlon Ettinger, Lewis Hodder, and Matt Seidel.
158 pages, Paperback
Published November 20, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 30, 2022
Great collection of essays regarding imperialism, offering insightful reflections on various imperial projects and history. Almost all of the essays felt just the right length, offering depth and much needed analysis to elements that help illuminate the whole. I'll offer a brief review of the essays:
Yoseti Herrera Guitian, 'Cuban Women in the Special Period': The focus on Cuban women, particularly their resilience and ingenouity in the face of imperialist aggression after the dissolution of Cuba's Soviet ally, is pertinent and interesting. I wish it was a bit more specific as it felt it painted quickly and with a broad brush, which is perhaps why it was placed at the start.
Max Ajl, 'A People's Green New Deal: An interview': A great discussion that also provides numerous key concepts that lead into the other essays of the book, Max does a great job of underlining the pointlessness of "environmental" policies that fail to directly challenge the immense and ceaseless ecological annhiliation carried out by nations of the imperial core upon the global south.
Louis Allday, 'The Palestinians' inalienable right to resist': This essay rightly calls out the shamefulness of western "leftists" who criticise Palestinian's fighting for their homes, lives, and freedoms against a murderous settler-colonial state intent to engage in genocide. Palestinians have the right to fight back using whatever violence is neccessary according to international law, and that fact should be in bold at the start of every article and speech about the struggle for Palestine.
Alfie Hancox, 'British Communism's patriotic disease': It should be no surprise to anyone living in the UK that British leftism, like everything else in Britian, is tinged with racism and imperial apologia - and pandering to patriotism is one clear symptom of this. Alfie says it clearly, so I'll quote: "Far from being 'progressive', left-wing patriotism in Britain carries the shameful legacy of the Second International's self-destruction while workers killed their comrades across trench lines; the betrayal of communist and liberation movements in the colonised countries, and a sustained history of racist and sexist trade union exclusionism. In the present context of the ramped up racial violence of the hostile environment, escalating inter-imperialist rivalry, and creeping fascism both nationally and internationally, no more quarter can be given to flag-waving prejudices."
Carlos Martinez, 'The left must resolutely oppose the US-led New Cold War on China' : The US is a blood-fuelled imperialist machine whose functioning is dependent on being the sole global superpower and thus having unquestioned might to ruthlessly extract resources, murder critics, fund anti-communist dictators, and ensure white supremacy is upheld. China, as a nation that identifies as communist and invests worldwide in create a multipolar system that could build resilience against imperial aggression and protect rights to self-govern, naturally emerges in the eyes of US officials as the most dire of arch-enemies (depsite China's repeated calls for international cooperation to ensure peace). Carlos also highlights how the Cold War was never cold for the oppressed people of the global south who died so that America could wage proxy war on the USSR.
Henry Heller, 'Chinese Universities and the new Red Scare': Couples well with the previous essay, highlighting anti-Chinese propaganda that is allowed to spread like wildfire across the US and Europe - to the extent that those currently vying for the title of PM have called to aggressively root out and end Chinese involvement in UK universities.
Qiao Collective, 'Raising their banner high: fascism, imperialism, and anti-communism at the Capitol Hill riots': Useful breakdown of the internationalism of fascism as evident at the Jan 6th events, which I hadn't previously considered. I hadn't heard of the Qiao Collective before, but am glad I have now (see their website).
Red Condor Collective, 'Imperialism, Colombia's massacres, and what you can do about it': To quote from p.115: "To the Western press, human rights are not a matter of fulfilling obligations society has to all people, but a weapon in the war of information used to turn public opinion against its enemies and towards its allies - including the Colombian government... Western mainstream media is selectively humanitarian in the sense that they apply 'international' pressure on governments only when it is in their region's economic or geopolitical interest."
Edward Saïd, 'Grey and Sober Jerusalem': I have respect for Saïd, but this essay felt out of place for me, being a (short) personal reflection on his brief time spent living in Jerusalem, remembering how it was still almost entirely the home of Palestinians when he was there, before settlers from across America, Germany, and Poland robbed them of their homes.
Finally, the book ends with three reviews: Marlon Ettinger on The Jakarta Method; Lewis Hodder on Fully Automated Luxary Communism; and Matthew James Seidal on How to Hide an Empire. The first and last of these are great commentaries on books with their own use in furthering our understanding of the imperialism that shapes our world, and the middle is a scathing and enjoyable condemnation of the arrogance of laziness of Bastani's self-centred monograph that represents the western tendency to ignore empire and the voices of those it brutalises.
In conclusion, a great short collection that I'm glad I read.
Yoseti Herrera Guitian, 'Cuban Women in the Special Period': The focus on Cuban women, particularly their resilience and ingenouity in the face of imperialist aggression after the dissolution of Cuba's Soviet ally, is pertinent and interesting. I wish it was a bit more specific as it felt it painted quickly and with a broad brush, which is perhaps why it was placed at the start.
Max Ajl, 'A People's Green New Deal: An interview': A great discussion that also provides numerous key concepts that lead into the other essays of the book, Max does a great job of underlining the pointlessness of "environmental" policies that fail to directly challenge the immense and ceaseless ecological annhiliation carried out by nations of the imperial core upon the global south.
Louis Allday, 'The Palestinians' inalienable right to resist': This essay rightly calls out the shamefulness of western "leftists" who criticise Palestinian's fighting for their homes, lives, and freedoms against a murderous settler-colonial state intent to engage in genocide. Palestinians have the right to fight back using whatever violence is neccessary according to international law, and that fact should be in bold at the start of every article and speech about the struggle for Palestine.
Alfie Hancox, 'British Communism's patriotic disease': It should be no surprise to anyone living in the UK that British leftism, like everything else in Britian, is tinged with racism and imperial apologia - and pandering to patriotism is one clear symptom of this. Alfie says it clearly, so I'll quote: "Far from being 'progressive', left-wing patriotism in Britain carries the shameful legacy of the Second International's self-destruction while workers killed their comrades across trench lines; the betrayal of communist and liberation movements in the colonised countries, and a sustained history of racist and sexist trade union exclusionism. In the present context of the ramped up racial violence of the hostile environment, escalating inter-imperialist rivalry, and creeping fascism both nationally and internationally, no more quarter can be given to flag-waving prejudices."
Carlos Martinez, 'The left must resolutely oppose the US-led New Cold War on China' : The US is a blood-fuelled imperialist machine whose functioning is dependent on being the sole global superpower and thus having unquestioned might to ruthlessly extract resources, murder critics, fund anti-communist dictators, and ensure white supremacy is upheld. China, as a nation that identifies as communist and invests worldwide in create a multipolar system that could build resilience against imperial aggression and protect rights to self-govern, naturally emerges in the eyes of US officials as the most dire of arch-enemies (depsite China's repeated calls for international cooperation to ensure peace). Carlos also highlights how the Cold War was never cold for the oppressed people of the global south who died so that America could wage proxy war on the USSR.
Henry Heller, 'Chinese Universities and the new Red Scare': Couples well with the previous essay, highlighting anti-Chinese propaganda that is allowed to spread like wildfire across the US and Europe - to the extent that those currently vying for the title of PM have called to aggressively root out and end Chinese involvement in UK universities.
Qiao Collective, 'Raising their banner high: fascism, imperialism, and anti-communism at the Capitol Hill riots': Useful breakdown of the internationalism of fascism as evident at the Jan 6th events, which I hadn't previously considered. I hadn't heard of the Qiao Collective before, but am glad I have now (see their website).
Red Condor Collective, 'Imperialism, Colombia's massacres, and what you can do about it': To quote from p.115: "To the Western press, human rights are not a matter of fulfilling obligations society has to all people, but a weapon in the war of information used to turn public opinion against its enemies and towards its allies - including the Colombian government... Western mainstream media is selectively humanitarian in the sense that they apply 'international' pressure on governments only when it is in their region's economic or geopolitical interest."
Edward Saïd, 'Grey and Sober Jerusalem': I have respect for Saïd, but this essay felt out of place for me, being a (short) personal reflection on his brief time spent living in Jerusalem, remembering how it was still almost entirely the home of Palestinians when he was there, before settlers from across America, Germany, and Poland robbed them of their homes.
Finally, the book ends with three reviews: Marlon Ettinger on The Jakarta Method; Lewis Hodder on Fully Automated Luxary Communism; and Matthew James Seidal on How to Hide an Empire. The first and last of these are great commentaries on books with their own use in furthering our understanding of the imperialism that shapes our world, and the middle is a scathing and enjoyable condemnation of the arrogance of laziness of Bastani's self-centred monograph that represents the western tendency to ignore empire and the voices of those it brutalises.
In conclusion, a great short collection that I'm glad I read.
March 29, 2025
really great collection of essays. standouts include opening one on the Special Period in Cuba, Allday's on the absolute right of the Palestinians to struggle for self-determination, a reprint of a hugely moving Said essay about his childhood / all the ways of life which Israel have destroyed in the years since and Hancox's inventory of chauvinistic positions, slogans, tactics across the history of the British left, which I know I will be returning to many times into the future.
An interview with Max Ajl provides the most detail on the subject of political economy and it is a critique of social democratic ecology á la the Green New Deal + Malm's environmental Leninism via theories of unequal exchange derived from Marini and pre-hard-right pivot Cope. The road forward here is a return to Mao: breaking up large estates, giving workers a balanced diet and allowing for surplus towards export-substitute industrialisation. I look forward to checking out more of his stuff and seeing where the movement towards this horizon is to originate, especially if it involves or requires abolishing consumerism in the west.
Otherwise wish the China articles cited more contemporary local sources which could tell us what the CCP, the working class or any other social strata were doing, saying and thinking + skirmished with Jacobin less.
An interview with Max Ajl provides the most detail on the subject of political economy and it is a critique of social democratic ecology á la the Green New Deal + Malm's environmental Leninism via theories of unequal exchange derived from Marini and pre-hard-right pivot Cope. The road forward here is a return to Mao: breaking up large estates, giving workers a balanced diet and allowing for surplus towards export-substitute industrialisation. I look forward to checking out more of his stuff and seeing where the movement towards this horizon is to originate, especially if it involves or requires abolishing consumerism in the west.
Otherwise wish the China articles cited more contemporary local sources which could tell us what the CCP, the working class or any other social strata were doing, saying and thinking + skirmished with Jacobin less.
November 26, 2024
3.5-4 depending on the essay!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews