Portside

In defining a clear and comprehensive anti-capitalist politics and offering rational and compelling reasons for operating as anti-capitalists, highly readable Marxian scholar David Harvey goes beyond listing contradictions of capital to engage in a systematic account of the web of 17 relationships for what are usually treated as isolated aspects of crisis. Many of the contradictions are manageable, but some in combination also contain the seeds of systemic catastrophe.

Marx called it "the dictatorship of the proletariat" and its militants those who "stormed heaven." For 76 days in 1871, this first experiment in workers self-government and armed defense against troops of the old order also made costly mistakes leading to its slaughter. The author chronicles not only Commune governance and the role of women as leaders and fighters, but the intricacies of a counter-revolution that sought nothing less than crushing Paris' working class.