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Until We Fall: Long Distance Life on the Left
Offers vivid first hand accounts of encounters with fellow socialists following the fall of the Soviet Union
Most westerners glimpsed the breakup of the Soviet Union at a great distance, through a highly distorted lens which equated the expansion of capitalism with the rise of global democracy. But there were those, like Helena Sheehan, who watched more keenly and saw a world turning upside down. In her new autobiographical history from below, Until We Fall , Sheehan shares what she witnessed first-hand and close-up, as hopes were raised by glasnost and perestroika, only to be swept away in the bitter and brutal counterrevolutions that followed.
In Until We Fall , we come along on Sheehan’s travels as she tracks the fallout from the transition from flawed forms of socialism to a particularly predatory form of capitalism. As a sequel to Navigating the Zeitgeist ― which captured 1950s cold-war America, the 1960s new left, the 1970s social movements and communist parties of Europe ― Until We Fall takes us through Eastern Europe from the 1980s onward and moves on to offer vivid accounts of encounters with fellow socialists in many other places, such as Britain, Greece, and Mexico. It includes an entire chapter on South Africa, where Sheehan participated in its political and intellectual life for extended intervals of the post-apartheid period. And it offers her unique take on her birthplace, the United States, along with the unfolding realities confronting her chosen home, Ireland. She also reveals major changes in the culture of academe in the decades she has taught in universities.
As a philosopher, she scrutinizes the various intellectual currents prevailing, particularly positivism and postmodernism, and makes a persuasive case for the explanatory and ethical superiority of Marxism. As she moves through time and space, Sheehan pursues the perspectives of the vanquished in a world where the triumphalist narratives of the victors hold sway. The central storyline of the book is her political activism as waves of history swept through the left and challenged it in ever more formidable ways, bringing some victories but many defeats. She raises questions of how to keep going in this time of monsters, when the old is dying and the new cannot be born, when capitalism is decadent yet still dominant.
Most westerners glimpsed the breakup of the Soviet Union at a great distance, through a highly distorted lens which equated the expansion of capitalism with the rise of global democracy. But there were those, like Helena Sheehan, who watched more keenly and saw a world turning upside down. In her new autobiographical history from below, Until We Fall , Sheehan shares what she witnessed first-hand and close-up, as hopes were raised by glasnost and perestroika, only to be swept away in the bitter and brutal counterrevolutions that followed.
In Until We Fall , we come along on Sheehan’s travels as she tracks the fallout from the transition from flawed forms of socialism to a particularly predatory form of capitalism. As a sequel to Navigating the Zeitgeist ― which captured 1950s cold-war America, the 1960s new left, the 1970s social movements and communist parties of Europe ― Until We Fall takes us through Eastern Europe from the 1980s onward and moves on to offer vivid accounts of encounters with fellow socialists in many other places, such as Britain, Greece, and Mexico. It includes an entire chapter on South Africa, where Sheehan participated in its political and intellectual life for extended intervals of the post-apartheid period. And it offers her unique take on her birthplace, the United States, along with the unfolding realities confronting her chosen home, Ireland. She also reveals major changes in the culture of academe in the decades she has taught in universities.
As a philosopher, she scrutinizes the various intellectual currents prevailing, particularly positivism and postmodernism, and makes a persuasive case for the explanatory and ethical superiority of Marxism. As she moves through time and space, Sheehan pursues the perspectives of the vanquished in a world where the triumphalist narratives of the victors hold sway. The central storyline of the book is her political activism as waves of history swept through the left and challenged it in ever more formidable ways, bringing some victories but many defeats. She raises questions of how to keep going in this time of monsters, when the old is dying and the new cannot be born, when capitalism is decadent yet still dominant.
357 pages, Hardcover
Published November 1, 2023
21 people want to read
About the author
Helena Sheehan
11 books17 followersProfessor Helena Sheehan is an academic philosopher, historian of science, and writer on communication studies, politics, and philosophical (particularly Marxist) subjects. Sheehan is a retired (Professor Emeritus) Communications lecturer at Dublin City University and has been a visiting professor at the University of Cape Town.
Born in the United States, Sheehan describes her childhood as Catholic and conservative, Sheehan began studies her university and taught primary school as a nun. As a result of studying, she became an agnostic and liberal, then later an atheist and radical. She then left the convent. Sheehan earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1967 from St. Joseph's University (then known as St. Joseph's College) in Philadelphia, followed by an MA in 1970 from Temple University in Philadelphia. She earned a PhD in 1980 from Trinity College (Dublin) in philosophy – then already active in the Trinity College Dublin Communist Society.
As an historian of science, Sheehan develops the view that Marx and Engels shared fundamentally the same view on the philosophy of science. A Marxist humanist, Sheehan has written critically of Lysenkoism and Stalin's impact on scientific development.
Sheehan has lectured at the Humanist Association of Ireland.
In her personal life, Sheehan is the partner of the trade unionist Sam Nolan.
Born in the United States, Sheehan describes her childhood as Catholic and conservative, Sheehan began studies her university and taught primary school as a nun. As a result of studying, she became an agnostic and liberal, then later an atheist and radical. She then left the convent. Sheehan earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1967 from St. Joseph's University (then known as St. Joseph's College) in Philadelphia, followed by an MA in 1970 from Temple University in Philadelphia. She earned a PhD in 1980 from Trinity College (Dublin) in philosophy – then already active in the Trinity College Dublin Communist Society.
As an historian of science, Sheehan develops the view that Marx and Engels shared fundamentally the same view on the philosophy of science. A Marxist humanist, Sheehan has written critically of Lysenkoism and Stalin's impact on scientific development.
Sheehan has lectured at the Humanist Association of Ireland.
In her personal life, Sheehan is the partner of the trade unionist Sam Nolan.
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