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Chicago: China Miéville on the Russian Revolution

May 27, 2017 at 7.00pm – 9.00pm

University Church

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Award-winning writer China Miéville has long been inspired by the ideals of the Russian Revolution and here, on the centenary of the revolution, he provides his own distinctive take on its history.



In February 1917, in the midst of bloody war, Russia was still an autocratic monarchy: nine months later, it became the first socialist state in world history. How did this unimaginable transformation take place? How was a ravaged and backward country, swept up in a desperately unpopular war, rocked by not one but two revolutions?

This is the story of the extraordinary months between those upheavals, in February and October, of the forces and individuals who made 1917 so epochal a year, of their intrigues, negotiations, conflicts and catastrophes. From familiar names like Lenin and Trotsky to their opponents Kornilov and Kerensky; from the byzantine squabbles of urban activists to the remotest villages of a sprawling empire; from the revolutionary railroad Sublime to the ciphers and static of coup by telegram; from grand sweep to forgotten detail.

Historians have debated the revolution for a hundred years, its portents and possibilities: the mass of literature can be daunting. But here is a book for those new to the events, told not only in their historical import but in all their passion and drama and strangeness. Because as well as a political event of profound and ongoing consequence, Miéville reveals the Russian Revolution as a breathtaking story.

October: The Story of the Russian Revolution is available from Verso Books on May 9, 2017: https://www.versobooks.com/books/2443-october

China Miéville is the multi-award-winning author of many works of fiction and non-fiction. His fiction includes The City and the City, Embassytown and This Census-Taker, and has won the Hugo, World Fantasy and Arthur C. Clarke awards; his non-fiction includes the photo-illustrated essay London’s Overthrow and Between Equal Rights: A Marxist Theory of International Law. He has written for various publications, including the New York Times, Guardian, Conjunctions and Granta and he is a founding editor of the quarterly Salvage.

Anton Ford joined the faculty in 2007 and is an Associate Professor in Philosophy. He received his B.A. from Harvard University in 1999 and his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh in 2008. His primary research and teaching interests are in Practical Philosophy, understood broadly to include Action Theory, Ethics and Political Philosophy. Figures of special interest include Aristotle, Anscombe, and Marx. Anton Ford is the Director of Undergraduate Studies.

Co-sponsored by Haymarket Books, Verso Books, Jacobin Magazine, The Chicago International Socialist Organization, and Chicago Democratic Socialists of America.
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Between Equal Rights

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by China Miéville

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