Monthly Review
Encyclopedia
Monthly Review is an independent Marxist journal
published 11 times per year in New York City
.
economics
instructor Paul Sweezy
, who became the first editor. The New York Times described Sweezy as "the nation's leading Marxist intellectual and publisher during the cold war
and the McCarthy era
." The first issue of Monthly Review appeared in May 1949. Its lead article was "Why Socialism?
" by physicist
Albert Einstein
.
During the McCarthyism of the early 1950s, its original editors Paul Sweezy and Leo Huberman
were targeted for "subversive activities." Sweezy's case, tried by New Hampshire Attorney General
, went all the way to the Supreme Court
and became a seminal case on freedom of speech
when the Court ruled in his favor.
told the New York Times, "The Monthly Review was attractive to people who were leaving the Communist Party and other sectarian groups. It was and is Marxist, but did not hew to the party line or get into sectarian struggles." Monthly Review has been a consistent voice for socialism and against American imperialism. The editors of Monthly Review have been prominent Marxist
academics, economists and authors. They have been independent and not aligned with a particular existing revolution
ary movement or political organization. Many of its articles have been written by academics, journalists and authors, including W. E. B. Du Bois, Paul A. Baran
, Jean-Paul Sartre
, Che Guevara
, Joan Robinson
, Tariq Ali
, Grace Lee Boggs
, Noam Chomsky
, Bernardine Dohrn
, Mumia Abu-Jamal
, Marilyn Buck
, Doug Henwood
, Michael Klare
, James Petras
, Frances Fox Piven
, and Adrienne Rich
.
Aijaz Ahmad
has said about Monthly Review: "It seems to me that in the postwar United States Monthly Review has been the only institution of the Left which provides a full-fledged narrative of the world."
Monthly Review Press, an allied endeavor, has published many political books, such as Fanshen by William Hinton
, Labour and Monopoly Capital by Harry Braverman
, The Development of Underdevelopment by Andre Gunder Frank
, Unequal Development by Samir Amin
, The Arabs in Israel by Sabri Jiryis
and the English
translation
of Open Veins of Latin America
, by Eduardo Galeano
.
.
Also many Monthly Review Press books have been re-published in Italy by the publisher Dedalo Libri, in a series under the same American name.
Academic journal
An academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research...
published 11 times per year in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
History
The publication was founded by Harvard UniversityHarvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
instructor Paul Sweezy
Paul Sweezy
Paul Marlor Sweezy was a Marxist economist, political activist, publisher, and founding editor of the long-running magazine Monthly Review...
, who became the first editor. The New York Times described Sweezy as "the nation's leading Marxist intellectual and publisher during the cold war
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
and the McCarthy era
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...
." The first issue of Monthly Review appeared in May 1949. Its lead article was "Why Socialism?
Why Socialism?
"Why Socialism?" is an article written by Albert Einstein in May 1949 which appeared in the first issue of the socialist journal Monthly Review and is one of Einstein's most important and well known political works...
" by physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
.
During the McCarthyism of the early 1950s, its original editors Paul Sweezy and Leo Huberman
Leo Huberman
Leo Huberman was an American socialist writer. In 1949 he founded and co-edited Monthly Review with Paul Sweezy.-Works:* Cuba: A revolution revisited* Vietnam: The Endless War* Socialism in Cuba...
were targeted for "subversive activities." Sweezy's case, tried by New Hampshire Attorney General
New Hampshire Attorney General
The New Hampshire Attorney General is a constitutional officer of the U.S. state of New Hampshire who serves as head of the Department of Justice...
, went all the way to the Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
and became a seminal case on freedom of speech
Freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used...
when the Court ruled in his favor.
Viewpoint
In 2004, Monthly Review editor John Bellamy FosterJohn Bellamy Foster
John Bellamy Foster is a professor of sociology at the University of Oregon and also editor of Monthly Review, an independent socialist magazine. His writings have focused on political economy, environmental sociology, and Marxist theory...
told the New York Times, "The Monthly Review was attractive to people who were leaving the Communist Party and other sectarian groups. It was and is Marxist, but did not hew to the party line or get into sectarian struggles." Monthly Review has been a consistent voice for socialism and against American imperialism. The editors of Monthly Review have been prominent Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
academics, economists and authors. They have been independent and not aligned with a particular existing revolution
Revolution
A revolution is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.Aristotle described two types of political revolution:...
ary movement or political organization. Many of its articles have been written by academics, journalists and authors, including W. E. B. Du Bois, Paul A. Baran
Paul A. Baran
Paul Alexander Baran was an American economist known for his Marxist views. In 1951 Baran was promoted to full professor at Stanford University and Baran was the only tenured Marxist economist in the United States until his death in 1964...
, Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
, Che Guevara
Che Guevara
Ernesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...
, Joan Robinson
Joan Robinson
Joan Violet Robinson FBA was a post-Keynesian economist who was well known for her knowledge of monetary economics and wide-ranging contributions to economic theory...
, Tariq Ali
Tariq Ali
Tariq Ali , , is a British Pakistani military historian, novelist, journalist, filmmaker, public intellectual, political campaigner, activist, and commentator...
, Grace Lee Boggs
Grace Lee Boggs
Grace Lee Boggs is an author, lifelong social activist and feminist. She is known for her years of political collaboration with C.L.R. James and Raya Dunayevskaya in the 1940s and 1950s. She eventually went off in her own political direction in the 1960s with her husband of some forty years, James...
, Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
, Bernardine Dohrn
Bernardine Dohrn
Bernardine Rae Dohrn is a former leader of the American anti-Vietnam War radical organization, Weather Underground. She is an Associate Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law and the immediate past Director of Northwestern's Children and Family Justice Center...
, Mumia Abu-Jamal
Mumia Abu-Jamal
Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted of the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner and sentenced to death. He has been described as "perhaps the world's best known death-row inmate", and his sentence is one of the most debated today...
, Marilyn Buck
Marilyn Buck
Marilyn Jean Buck was an American Marxist revolutionary, convict, and feminist poet, who was imprisoned for her participation in the 1979 prison escape of Assata Shakur, the 1981 Brinks robbery and the 1983 U.S. Senate bombing...
, Doug Henwood
Doug Henwood
Doug Henwood is an American journalist who writes frequently about economic affairs. He publishes a newsletter, Left Business Observer, that analyzes economics and politics from a left-wing perspective, and is a contributing editor at The Nation.- Early years :Henwood was born in Teaneck, New...
, Michael Klare
Michael Klare
Michael T. Klare is a Five Colleges professor of Peace and World Security Studies, whose department is located at Hampshire College, defense correspondent of The Nation magazine, and author of Resource Wars and Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Petroleum Dependency...
, James Petras
James Petras
James Petras is a retired Bartle Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York and adjunct professor at Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada who has published prolifically on Latin American and Middle Eastern political issues.-Academic and...
, Frances Fox Piven
Frances Fox Piven
Frances Fox Piven is an American professor of political science and sociology at The Graduate Center, City University of New York, where she has taught since 1982.-Life and education:...
, and Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Cecile Rich is an American poet, essayist and feminist. She has been called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century."-Early life:...
.
Aijaz Ahmad
Aijaz Ahmad
Aijaz Ahmad is a well-known Marxist literary theorist and political commentator based in India.Born in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India just before it gained independence from British rule, Aijaz Ahmad along with his parents migrated to Pakistan following partition. After his education he worked...
has said about Monthly Review: "It seems to me that in the postwar United States Monthly Review has been the only institution of the Left which provides a full-fledged narrative of the world."
Monthly Review Press, an allied endeavor, has published many political books, such as Fanshen by William Hinton
William H. Hinton
William Howard Hinton was an American farmer and prolific writer. A Marxist, he is best known for his book Fanshen, published in 1966, a "documentary of revolution" which chronicled the land reform conducted by the Chinese Communist Party in the 1940s in Zhangzhuangcun , sometimes translated as...
, Labour and Monopoly Capital by Harry Braverman
Harry Braverman
Harry Braverman was an American Socialist, economist and political writer. He sometimes used the pseudonym Harry Frankel.Braverman was born on the 9th December 1920 in New York City...
, The Development of Underdevelopment by Andre Gunder Frank
Andre Gunder Frank
Andre Gunder Frank was a German-American economic historian and sociologist who promoted "dependency theory" after 1970 and "World Systems Theory" after 1984...
, Unequal Development by Samir Amin
Samir Amin
Samir Amin is an Egyptian economist. He currently lives in Dakar, Senegal.- Biography :Samir Amin was born in Cairo, the son of an Egyptian father and a French mother . He spent his childhood and youth in Port Said; there he attended a French High School, leaving in 1947 with a Baccalauréat...
, The Arabs in Israel by Sabri Jiryis
Sabri Jiryis
Sabri Jiryis is a Palestinian-Arab Israeli writer and lawyer, a graduate of the Hebrew University law faculty, and prominent Palestinian activist. In 1966 the first edition of his book The Arabs in Israel was published in Hebrew.- Arrest in Israel :He was given an "Administrative House Arrest"...
and the English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
translation
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
of Open Veins of Latin America
Open Veins of Latin America
Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent is a book written by Uruguayan journalist, writer and poet Eduardo Galeano, and published in 1971.- Summary :...
, by Eduardo Galeano
Eduardo Galeano
Eduardo Hughes Galeano is a Uruguayan journalist, writer and novelist. His best known works are Memoria del fuego and Las venas abiertas de América Latina which have been translated into twenty languages and transcend orthodox genres: combining fiction, journalism, political analysis, and...
.
Editors
Monthly Review has had six editors:- Paul SweezyPaul SweezyPaul Marlor Sweezy was a Marxist economist, political activist, publisher, and founding editor of the long-running magazine Monthly Review...
, from 1949 to his death in 2004 - Leo HubermanLeo HubermanLeo Huberman was an American socialist writer. In 1949 he founded and co-edited Monthly Review with Paul Sweezy.-Works:* Cuba: A revolution revisited* Vietnam: The Endless War* Socialism in Cuba...
from 1949 to his death in 1968 - Harry MagdoffHarry MagdoffHenry Samuel Magdoff , was a prominent American socialist commentator. He held several administrative positions in government during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt and later became co-editor of the Marxist publication, Monthly Review.-Early years:A child of poor Russian-Jewish immigrants,...
from 1969 to his death in 2006 - Ellen Meiksins WoodEllen Meiksins Wood-Biography:Wood was born Ellen Meiksins one year after her parents, Latvian Jews active in the Bund, arrived in New York from Europe as political refugees. She was raised in the United States and Europe.Wood received a B.A...
, 1997–2000 - Robert W. McChesneyRobert W. McChesneyRobert Waterman McChesney is an American professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication. His work concentrates on the history and political economy of communication, emphasizing the role media play in democratic...
, 2000–2004 - John Bellamy FosterJohn Bellamy FosterJohn Bellamy Foster is a professor of sociology at the University of Oregon and also editor of Monthly Review, an independent socialist magazine. His writings have focused on political economy, environmental sociology, and Marxist theory...
, May 2000–present
The Monthly in Italy
The Monthly Review was also published (1968–87) in Italy (Bari, Edizioni Dedalo). Main contributors: Enzo Modugno, Luciano Canfora, Nico PerroneNico Perrone
Nico Perrone is an Italian essayist, historian and journalist. He firstly discovered papers on the plot for killing Enrico Mattei, the Italian state tycoon for oil in the 1950s....
.
Also many Monthly Review Press books have been re-published in Italy by the publisher Dedalo Libri, in a series under the same American name.
External links
- Monthly Review website
- MRZine, the magazine's internet zine
- Monthly Review Press publishing house and catalog
- The Monthly Review Story: 1949-1984 by Robert W. McChesneyRobert W. McChesneyRobert Waterman McChesney is an American professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication. His work concentrates on the history and political economy of communication, emphasizing the role media play in democratic...
- ΜΗΝΙΑΙΑ ΕΠΙΘΕΩΡΗΣΗ Greek-language edition website
- From the Left: Harry Magdoff; A Free-Market Failure, New York Times interview of Monthly Review co-editor Harry Magdoff, November 1, 1987.