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Marxism and Social Movements
Marxism and Social Movements is the first sustained engagement between social-movement theory and Marxist approaches to collective action. The chapters collected here, by leading figures in both fields, discuss the potential for a Marxist theory of social movements. Exploring struggles on six continents over 150 years, it sets a new agenda both for Marxist theory and for movement research.
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Reviews
  • "The impressive diversity and scope of the contributions [...] shows the fruitfulness of an encounter between Marxism and social movements research not just within academia. [...] [I]t is the editors' merit to have contributed to a necessary revival of Marxist debate and theoretisation[.]"
    —Dietmar Lange, JahrBuch für Forschungen zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung.

    "The Financial Times positively dissects Marx’s ideas in their weekend edition, while today’s radical movements such as Climate Camp, Slutwalk, or Occupy treat Marx with suspicion or even contempt. These contradictory phenomena make Barker et al.’s Marxism and Social Movements all the more important. The essays in this collection aim to develop both the tools necessary to understand today’s social movements, and an analysis that can explain the marginality of Marxism within them. More fundamentally, the book also sets out to establish a Marxist framework for social movement research and practice, where otherwise one has been absent.
    —Mark Bergfeld, the Oxford Left Review

    “Given the dearth of politically judicious and penetrating analyses of contemporary popular mobilisations, Marxism and Social Movements is a timely and refreshing contribution to social movement studies. Though the subject matter examined in each chapter is diverse— spanning, in total, struggles across six continents and over 150 years—the edited volume as a whole presents a compelling case for reviving Marxist analytical frameworks to examine social movements.”
    —Puneet Dhaliwal , Ceasefire

    “Marxism and Social Movements is a special collection, offering scholars and social movements not just tools, but also the keys to an otherwise locked box of necessary radical theory and practice.” –Interface Journal

  • "The impressive diversity and scope of the contributions [...] shows the fruitfulness of an encounter between Marxism and social movements research not just within academia. [...] [I]t is the editors' merit to have contributed to a necessary revival of Marxist debate and theoretisation[.]"
    —Dietmar Lange, JahrBuch für Forschungen zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung.

    "The Financial Times positively dissects Marx’s ideas in their weekend edition, while today’s radical movements such as Climate Camp, Slutwalk, or Occupy treat Marx with suspicion or even contempt. These contradictory phenomena make Barker et al.’s Marxism and Social Movements all the more important. The essays in this collection aim to develop both the tools necessary to understand today’s social movements, and an analysis that can explain the marginality of Marxism within them. More fundamentally, the book also sets out to establish a Marxist framework for social movement research and practice, where otherwise one has been absent.
    —Mark Bergfeld, the Oxford Left Review

    “Given the dearth of politically judicious and penetrating analyses of contemporary popular mobilisations, Marxism and Social Movements is a timely and refreshing contribution to social movement studies. Though the subject matter examined in each chapter is diverse— spanning, in total, struggles across six continents and over 150 years—the edited volume as a whole presents a compelling case for reviving Marxist analytical frameworks to examine social movements.”
    —Puneet Dhaliwal , Ceasefire

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Other books edited by Colin Barker, Laurence Cox, et al.