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Class War: A Literary History
A bold new history of the global class war
A thrilling and vivid work of history, Class War weaves together literature and politics to chart the making and unmaking of social class through revolutionary combat. In a narrative that spans the globe and more than two centuries of history, Mark Steven traces the history of class war from the Haitian Revolution to Black Lives Matter.
Surveying the literature of revolution, from the poetry of Shelley and Byron to the novels of Émile Zola and Jack London, exploring the writings of Frantz Fanon, Che Guevara, and Assata Shakur, Class War reveals the interplay between military action and the politics of class, showing how solidarity flourishes in times of conflict. Written with verve and ranging across diverse historical settings, Class War traverses industrial battles, guerrilla insurgencies, and anticolonial resistance, as well as large-scale combat operations waged against capitalism's regimes and its interstate system.
In our age of economic crisis, ecological catastrophe, and planetary unrest, Steven tells the stories of those whose actions will help guide future militants toward a revolutionary horizon.
A thrilling and vivid work of history, Class War weaves together literature and politics to chart the making and unmaking of social class through revolutionary combat. In a narrative that spans the globe and more than two centuries of history, Mark Steven traces the history of class war from the Haitian Revolution to Black Lives Matter.
Surveying the literature of revolution, from the poetry of Shelley and Byron to the novels of Émile Zola and Jack London, exploring the writings of Frantz Fanon, Che Guevara, and Assata Shakur, Class War reveals the interplay between military action and the politics of class, showing how solidarity flourishes in times of conflict. Written with verve and ranging across diverse historical settings, Class War traverses industrial battles, guerrilla insurgencies, and anticolonial resistance, as well as large-scale combat operations waged against capitalism's regimes and its interstate system.
In our age of economic crisis, ecological catastrophe, and planetary unrest, Steven tells the stories of those whose actions will help guide future militants toward a revolutionary horizon.
304 pages, Paperback
First published April 25, 2023
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462 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 28, 2023
An impressive overview of revolutionary struggles over the past two centuries which thoroughly rejects reductionist notions of class. Each of the book's 10 chapters focuses on a particular epoch of heightened class warfare - from the Haitian Revolution over 200 years ago, to the Russian Revolution of 1917, to the post-war anti-colonial rebellions of Africa of the 1960s & 70s, and more. It's a literary history because it skillfully examines some of the literature (novels, essays, memoirs & poetry) that emerged from and exemplifies unique aspects of these struggles. It's led to some exciting additions to my to-be-read list.
"Class will therefore be understood here as one with a subaltern radicalism that faces off against colonial dispossession and military occupation, that fights against all kinds of gendered and racialized oppressions, finding its antecedent in mobilizations that first issued forth from the global south and which are now taking hold within the post-industrial, crises-ridden core of the capitalist world-system.
November 11, 2024
Class War : A Literary History est un ouvrage de Mark Steven, publié en anglais en 2023 chez Verso. L’auteur propose une histoire littéraire et politique de la lutte des classes, de la révolution haïtienne à nos jours.
A bold new history of the global class war
A thrilling and vivid work of history, Class War weaves together literature and politics to chart the making and unmaking of social class through revolutionary combat. In a narrative that spans the globe and more than two centuries of history, Mark Steven traces the history of class war from the Haitian Revolution to Black Lives Matter.
Surveying the literature of revolution, from the poetry of Shelley and Byron to the novels of Émile Zola and Jack London, exploring the writings of Frantz Fanon, Che Guevara, and Assata Shakur, Class War reveals the interplay between military action and the politics of class, showing how solidarity flourishes in times of conflict. Written with verve and ranging across diverse historical settings, Class War traverses industrial battles, guerrilla insurgencies, and anticolonial resistance, as well as large-scale combat operations waged against capitalism's regimes and its interstate system.
In our age of economic crisis, ecological catastrophe, and planetary unrest, Steven tells the stories of those whose actions will help guide future militants toward a revolutionary horizon.
L’ouvrage commence par un introduction où l’auteur définit la notion de classe et présente son approche, avec deux facettes de la lutte des classes :
- la lutte économique et sociale
- la lutte décoloniale et anti-impérialiste
L’auteur s’oppose ainsi au réductionnisme de classe et défend une vision large de la classe, qui inclut les aspects raciaux, coloniaux, féministes, etc.
Cette approche se retrouve dans le sommaire du livre. En effet, Mark Steven a choisi dix épisodes emblématiques de la lutte des classes dans l’histoire mondiale, en mêlant d’une part des luttes sociales ou des révolutions dans les états occidentaux, et d’autre part des luttes anti-impérialistes et décolonisées dans le Sud global. Le programme est le suivant :
1. The Burning South : la révolution haïtienne
2. Army of Redressers : le Luddisme et le Chartisme
3. Defend the City : la Commune de Paris
4. School of War : la guerre de Sécession et les grèves contre le capitalisme industriel américain
5. Towards a Red Army : la révolution russe
6. Protracted Peoples’ War : la révolution chinoise
7. For Complete Disorder : les guerres de décolonisation en Afrique, et en particulier la guerre d’Algérie
8. The Armed Nucleus : la révolution cubaine et la guérilla
9. Fighting after Fascism : autonomie et action directe en Italie
10. Army of the Wronged : les Black Panthers, la Black Liberation Army, et Black Lives Matter
Dans chaque chapitre, l’auteur propose à la fois un récit critique des événements et une analyse des récits littéraires qui en ont été faits. J’ai découvert ou redécouvert des épisodes plus ou moins connus de l’histoire sociale et révolutionnaire.
Le propos oscille ainsi sans cesse entre histoire sociale, politique et littéraire. Je ne sais pas s’il faut classer cet ouvrage comme un livre d’histoire, comme un essai politique ou un traité d’analyse littéraire, mais j’ai trouvé cela malin et intéressant.
A bold new history of the global class war
A thrilling and vivid work of history, Class War weaves together literature and politics to chart the making and unmaking of social class through revolutionary combat. In a narrative that spans the globe and more than two centuries of history, Mark Steven traces the history of class war from the Haitian Revolution to Black Lives Matter.
Surveying the literature of revolution, from the poetry of Shelley and Byron to the novels of Émile Zola and Jack London, exploring the writings of Frantz Fanon, Che Guevara, and Assata Shakur, Class War reveals the interplay between military action and the politics of class, showing how solidarity flourishes in times of conflict. Written with verve and ranging across diverse historical settings, Class War traverses industrial battles, guerrilla insurgencies, and anticolonial resistance, as well as large-scale combat operations waged against capitalism's regimes and its interstate system.
In our age of economic crisis, ecological catastrophe, and planetary unrest, Steven tells the stories of those whose actions will help guide future militants toward a revolutionary horizon.
L’ouvrage commence par un introduction où l’auteur définit la notion de classe et présente son approche, avec deux facettes de la lutte des classes :
- la lutte économique et sociale
- la lutte décoloniale et anti-impérialiste
L’auteur s’oppose ainsi au réductionnisme de classe et défend une vision large de la classe, qui inclut les aspects raciaux, coloniaux, féministes, etc.
Cette approche se retrouve dans le sommaire du livre. En effet, Mark Steven a choisi dix épisodes emblématiques de la lutte des classes dans l’histoire mondiale, en mêlant d’une part des luttes sociales ou des révolutions dans les états occidentaux, et d’autre part des luttes anti-impérialistes et décolonisées dans le Sud global. Le programme est le suivant :
1. The Burning South : la révolution haïtienne
2. Army of Redressers : le Luddisme et le Chartisme
3. Defend the City : la Commune de Paris
4. School of War : la guerre de Sécession et les grèves contre le capitalisme industriel américain
5. Towards a Red Army : la révolution russe
6. Protracted Peoples’ War : la révolution chinoise
7. For Complete Disorder : les guerres de décolonisation en Afrique, et en particulier la guerre d’Algérie
8. The Armed Nucleus : la révolution cubaine et la guérilla
9. Fighting after Fascism : autonomie et action directe en Italie
10. Army of the Wronged : les Black Panthers, la Black Liberation Army, et Black Lives Matter
Dans chaque chapitre, l’auteur propose à la fois un récit critique des événements et une analyse des récits littéraires qui en ont été faits. J’ai découvert ou redécouvert des épisodes plus ou moins connus de l’histoire sociale et révolutionnaire.
Le propos oscille ainsi sans cesse entre histoire sociale, politique et littéraire. Je ne sais pas s’il faut classer cet ouvrage comme un livre d’histoire, comme un essai politique ou un traité d’analyse littéraire, mais j’ai trouvé cela malin et intéressant.
August 19, 2023
An insightful and thoughtful exploration of class through revolution and its literature. Wide-ranging and spanning the globe over two centuries, from the Haitian Revolution to the war in Ukraine, from Shelley to Zola to Franz Fanon and incorporating many other writers along the way, Mark Steven weaves literature and politics together very effectively and offers a new lens through which to approach the study of class through literary criticism. Original and thought-provoking, accessibly written and well-researched.
June 10, 2025
A very broad ranging looking at class struggle and the different forms it took in different times and places, analysing it through the literature it produced - "from Louverture to le Guin" (although le Guin actually isn't mentioned).
I found this book to be a bit unfocused. It seemed to want to give a history of class struggle, drawing a line from one event to another, and also a literary analysis of the use of class war in progressive struggles.
Although a large chunk of each chapter is concerned with recounting the history of this or that period of class war, I didn't really learn anything new. It was all pretty straightforward retellings of things like the Haitian Revolution, the Paris Commune, the Black Panthers, etc. This wasn't really what I was hoping to get out of this book. Where it did cover something I didn't know much about, I'm sure I could have as easily gotten the information elsewhere.
I found this book to be a bit unfocused. It seemed to want to give a history of class struggle, drawing a line from one event to another, and also a literary analysis of the use of class war in progressive struggles.
Although a large chunk of each chapter is concerned with recounting the history of this or that period of class war, I didn't really learn anything new. It was all pretty straightforward retellings of things like the Haitian Revolution, the Paris Commune, the Black Panthers, etc. This wasn't really what I was hoping to get out of this book. Where it did cover something I didn't know much about, I'm sure I could have as easily gotten the information elsewhere.
January 23, 2024
I adored this book. I have whole passages underlined and countless pages dog-eared.
Read
June 19, 2024DNF
June 22, 2025
Spanning 2 centuries of class warfare, Mark Steven explores the notion of class from the Haitian revolution to the current ongoing war in Ukraine. This book prompts us to question our own understandings of how class struggle still permeates society across the globe and the implications of this on the political and literary landscape of today. Enjoyable and thought provoking.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews