Selected Writings

by Chris Harman

Chris Harman's output was phenomenal. As well as writing a number of importand books and pamphlets, he produced a steady flow of commentary, journalism and major articles on a very wide range of topics, making him one of Britain's most prolific Marxist authors. This Selected Writings, produced after Chris's sudden death in November 2009, reproduces articles on topics from economics to philosophy, from the state of the class struggle to cultural theory.

392 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2011

About the author

British journalist and political activist for the Socialist Workers Party.

Harmann was involved with activism against the Viet Nam war but became controversial for denouncing Ho Chi Minh for murdering the leader of the Vietnamese Trotskists.

Harman's work on May 1968 in France and other student and workers uprisings of the late 1960s, The Fire Last Time, was recommended by rock band Rage Against the Machine in their album sleeve notes for Evil Empire.

Reviews

[Kenneth Goodall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Harman was a prolific writer so much so that in this 360 page book of his esteemed writing, there are still many amazing articles of his which weren't published in this book such as 'Gramsci vs Euro communism'. For his writings that were excluded from this book there is talk of a second edition of his collected writings being published for which I feel the world would be better off for.

However this edition while leaving out Key articles by Harman which I would liked to have seen instead has gone for structuring his writings into key sections such as 'Party and Class', 'Russia and Eastern Europe' and 'Economics'. This is such a strength of the book in that one can clearly grasp his arguments in their context with other articles within each section to hammer out and further refine his polemics.

[Martin Empson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Regular readers might know that British socialist Chris Harman was a key influence on my (and many others) development as a Marxist activist. After Harman's untimely death in 2009 Colin Barker edited this collection of writings which has brought together many important works. Most of these are available on the internet, however bringing them together allows the reader to see connections between different areas of Harman's work as well as his central stress on the need to build revolutionary organisation in order to overthrow capitalism. Full review (and links to many of the pieces) on the blog: http://resolutereader.blogspot.com/20...