Recommended reading for leftists
Introduction and disclaimer:
I believe, in leftist praxis (especially online), the sharing of resources, including information, must be foremost. I have often been asked for reading recommendations by comrades; and while I am by no means an expert in leftist theory, I am a lifelong Marxist, and painfully overeducated. This list is far from comprehensive, and each author is worth exploring beyond the individual texts I suggest here. Further, none of these need to be read in full to derive benefit; read what selections from each interest you, and the more you read the better. Many of these texts cannot truly be called leftist either, but I believe all can equip us to confront capitalist hegemony and our place within it. And if one comrade derives the smallest value or insight herefrom, we will all be better for it. After all… La raison tonne en son cratère. Alone we are naught, together may we be all. Solidarity forever.
(I have split these into categories for ease of navigation, but there is plenty of overlap. Links included where available.)
Classics of socialist theory
Capital (vol.1) by Karl Marx
Marx’s critique of political economy forms the single most significant and vital source for understanding capitalism, both in our present and throughout history. Do not let its breadth daunt you; in general I feel it’s better to read a little theory than none, but nowhere is this truer than with regards to Capital. Better to read 20 pages of Capital than 150 pages of most other leftist literature. This is not a book you need to ‘finish’ in order to benefit from, but rather (like all of Marx’s work) the backbone of theory which you will return to throughout your life. Read a chapter, leave it, read on, read again.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Capital-Volume-I.pdf
The Prison Notebooks by Antonio Gramsci
In our current epoch of global neoliberal capitalism, Gramsci’s explanation of hegemony is more valuable than much of the economic or outright revolutionary analyses of many otherwise vital theory. Particularly following the coup attempt and election in America, as well as Brexit and abusive government responses to Covid, but the state violence around the world and the advent of fascism reasserts Gramsci as being as pertinent and prophetic now as amidst the first rise of fascism.
https://abahlali.org/files/gramsci.pdf
Imperialism: The Highest Stage Of Capitalism by V.I. Lenin
Like Marx, for many Lenin’s work is the backbone of socialist theory, particularly in pragmatic terms. In much of his writing Lenin focuses on the practical processes of revolutionary transition from capitalism to communism via socialism and proletarian leadership (sometimes divisively among leftists). Imperialism is perhaps most valuable today for addressing the need for internationalist proletarian support and solidarity in the face of global capitalist hegemony, arguably stronger today than in Lenin’s lifetime.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/imperialism.pdf
Socialism: Utopian And Scientific by Friedrich Engels
Marx’s partner offers a substantial insight into the material reality of socialism in the post-industrial age, offering further practical guidance and theory to Marx and Engels’ already robust body of work. This highlights the empirical rigour of classical Marxist theory, intended as a popular text accessible to proletarian readers, in order to condense and to some extent explain the density of Capital. Perhaps even more valuable now than at the time it was first published.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/index.htm
In Defense Of Marxism by Leon Trotsky
It has been over a decade since I have read any Trotsky, but this seems like a very good source to get to grips with both classical Marxist thought and to confront contemporary detractors. In many ways, Trotsky can be seen as an uncorrupt symbol of the Leninist dream, and in others his exile might illustrate the dangers of Leninism (Stalinism) when corrupt, so who better to defend the virtues of the system many see as his demise?
https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/idom/dm/dom.pdf
The Conquest Of Bread by Pyotr Kropotkin
Krapotkin forms the classical backbone of anarchist theory, and emerges from similar material conditions as Marxism. In many ways, ‘the Bread book’ forms a dual attack (on capitalism and authoritarianism of the state) and defence (of the basic rights and needs of every human), the text can be seen as foundational to defining anarchism both in overlap and starkly in contrast with Marxist communism. This is a seminal and eminent text on self-determination, and like Marx, will benefit the reader regardless of orthodox alignment.
https://libcom.org/files/Peter%20Kropotkin%20-%20The%20Conquest%20of%20Bread_0.pdf
Leftism of the 20th Century and beyond
Freedom Is A Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, And The Foundations Of A Movement by Angela Davis
This is something of a placeholder for Davis, as everything she has ever put to paper is profoundly valuable to international(ist) struggles against capitalism and it’s highest stage. Indeed, the emphasis on the relationship between American and Israeli racialised state violence highlights the struggles Davis has continually engaged since the late 1960s, that of a united front against imperialist oppression, white supremacists, patriarchal capitalist exploitation, and the carceral state.
https://www.docdroid.net/rfDRFWv/freedom-is-a-constant-struggle-pdf#page=6
Postmodernism, Or, The Cultural Logic Of Late Capitalism by Frederic Jameson
A frequent criticism of Marxism is the false claim that it is decreasingly relevant. Here, Jameson presents a compelling update of Marxist theory which addresses the hegemonic nature of mass media in the postmodern epoch (how befitting a tumblr post listing leftist literature). Despite being published in the early ‘90s, this analysis of late capitalism becomes all the more pertinent in the age of social media and ‘influencers’ etc., and illustrates just how immortal a science ours really is.
https://is.muni.cz/el/1423/jaro2016/SOC757/um/61816962/Jameson_The_cultural_logic.pdf
The Ecology Of Freedom: The Emergence And Dissolution Of Hierarchy by Murray Bookchin
I have not read this in depth, and take issue with some of Bookchin’s ideas, but this seems like a very good jumping off point to engage with ecosocialism or red-green theory. Regardless of any schism between Marxist and anarchist thought, the importance of uniting together to stem the unsustainable growth of industrialised capitalism cannot be denied. Climate change is unquestionably a threat faced by us all, but which will disproportionately impact the most disenfranchised on the planet.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-the-ecology-of-freedom.pdf
Why Marx Was Right by Terry Eagleton
I’ve only read excerpts of this; I know Eagleton better for his extensive work on Marxist literary criticism, postmodernity, and postcolonial literature, so I’m including this work of his as a means of introducing and engaging directly with Marxism itself, rather than the synthesis of diverse fields of analysis. But Eagleton generally does a very good job of parsing often incredibly dense concepts in an accessible way, so I trust him to explain something so obvious and self-evident as why Marx was right.
https://filosoficabiblioteca.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/EAGLETON-Terry-Why-Marx-Was-Right.pdf
By Any Means Necessary by Malcolm X
Malcolm X is one of the pre-eminent voices of the revolutionary black power movement, and among the greatest contributors to black/American leftist thought. This is a collection of his speeches and writings, in which he eloquently and charismaticly conveys both his righteous outrage and optimism for the future. Malcolm X’s explicitly Marxist and decolonial rhetoric is often downplayed since his assassination, but even the title and slogan is borrowed from Frantz Fanon.
Feminism and gender theory
Sister Outsider: Essays And Speeches by Audre Lorde
The primary thrust of this collection is the inclusion of ‘The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master’s House’, probably Lorde‘s most well known work, but all the contents are eminently worthwhile. Lorde addresses race, capitalist oppression, solidarity, sexuality and gender, in a rigourously rhetorical yet practical way that calls us to empower one another in the face of oppression. Lorde’s poetry is also great.
http://images.xhbtr.com/v2/pdfs/1082/Sister_Outsider_Essays_and_Speeches_by_Audre_Lorde.pdf
Feminism Is For Everybody by bell hooks
A seminal addition to Third Wave Feminist theory, emphasising the reality that the aim of feminism is to confront and dismantle patriarchal systems which oppress - you guessed it - everybody. This book approaches feminism through the lens of race and capitalism, feeding into the discourse on intersectionality which many of us now take as a central element of 21st Century feminism.
https://excoradfeminisms.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/bell_hooks-feminism_is_for_everybody.pdf
Gender Trouble: Feminism And The Subversion Of Identity by Judith Butler
Butler and her work form probably the single most significant (especially white) contribution to Third Wave Feminism, as well as queer theory. This may be a somewhat dense, academic work, but the primary hurdle is in deconstructing our existing perceptions of gender and identity, which we are certainly better equipped to do today specifically thanks to Butler. Vitally important stuff for dismantling hegemonic patriarchy.
https://selforganizedseminar.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/butler-gender_trouble.pdf
Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink Or Blue by Leslie Feinberg
Feinberg is perhaps the foundational voice in trans theory, best known for Stone Butch Blues, but this text seems like a good point to view hir push into mainstream acceptance where ze previously aligned hirself and trans groups more with gay and lesbian subcultures. A central element here is the accessibility and deconstruction of hegemonic gender and expression, but what this really expresses is a call for solidarity and support among marginalised classes, in a fight for our mutual visibility and survival, in the greatest of Marxist feminist traditions.
The Haraway Reader by Donna Haraway
Haraway is perhaps better known as a post-humanist than a Marxist feminist, but in all honesty, I am not sure these can be disentangled so easily. My highest recommendation is the essay ‘A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century‘, but it is in many ways concerned more with aesthetics and media criticism than anything practical, and Haraway’s engagement with technology has only become more significant, with the proliferation of smartphones and wifi, to understanding our bodies and ourselves as instruments of resistance.
https://monoskop.org/images/5/56/Haraway_Donna_The_Haraway_Reader_2003.pdf
The Wretched Of The Earth by Frantz Fanon
Perhaps my highest recommendation, this will give you better insight into late stage (postcolonial) capitalism than perhaps anything else. Fanon was a psychologist, and his analyses help us parse the internal workings of both the capitalist and racialised minds. I don’t see this work recommended nearly enough, largely because Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks is a better source for race theory, but The Wretched Of The Earth is the best choice for understanding revolutionary, anti-capitalist, and decolonial ideas.
http://abahlali.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Frantz-Fanon-The-Wretched-of-the-Earth-1965.pdf
Orientalism by Edward Said
This is probably the best introduction to postcolonial theory, particularly because it focuses on colonial/imperialist abuses in media and art. Said’s later work Culture And Imperialism may actually be a better source for strictly leftist analysis, but this is the groundwork for understanding the field, and will help readers confront and interpret everything from Western military interventionism to racist motifs in Disney films.
https://www.eaford.org/site/assets/files/1631/said_edward1977_orientalism.pdf
Decolonisation Is Not A Metaphor by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang
In direct response to Fanon’s call to decolonise (the mind), Tuck and Yang present a compelling assertion that the abstraction of decolonisation paves the way for settler claims of innocence rather than practical rapatriation of land and rights. The relatively short article centres and problematises ongoing complicity in the agenda of settler-colonial hegemony and the material conditions of indigenous groups in the postcolonial epoch. Important stuff for anti-imperialist work and solidarity.
https://clas.osu.edu/sites/clas.osu.edu/files/Tuck%20and%20Yang%202012%20Decolonization%20is%20not%20a%20metaphor.pdf
The Coloniser And The Colonised by Albert Memmi
Often read in tandem with Fanon, as both are concerned with trauma, violence, and dehumanisation. But further, Memmi addresses both the harm inflicted on the colonised body and the colonisers’ own culture and mind, while also exploring the impetus of practical resistance and dismantling imperialist control structures. This is also of great import to confronting detractors, offering the concrete precedent of Algerian decolonisation.
https://cominsitu.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/albert-memmi-the-colonizer-and-the-colonized-1.pdf
Can The Subaltern Speak? by Gayatri Spivak
This relatively short (though dense) essay will ideally help us to confront the real struggles of many of the most disenfranchised people on earth, removing us from questions of bourgeois wage-slavery and focusing on the right to education and freedom from sexual assault, not to mention the legacy of colonial genocide.
http://abahlali.org/files/Can_the_subaltern_speak.pdf
No Logo by Naomi Klein
I have some qualms with Klein, but she nevertheless makes important points regarding the systemic nature of neoliberal global capitalism and hegemony. No Logo addresses consumerism at a macro scale, emphasising the importance of what may be seen as internationalist solidarity and support and calling out corporate scapegoating on consumer markets. I understand that This Changes Everything is perhaps even better for addressing the unreasonable expectations of indefinite and unsustainable growth under capitalist systems, but I haven’t read it and therefore cannot recommend; regardless, this is a good starting point.
https://archive.org/stream/fp_Naomi_Klein-No_Logo/Naomi_Klein-No_Logo_djvu.txt
The Black Atlantic: Modernity And Double Consciousness by Paul Gilroy
This is an important source for understanding the development of diasporic (particularly black) identities in the wake of the Middle Passage between African and America, but more generally as well. This work can be related to parallel phenomena of racialised violence, genocide, and forced migration more widely, but it is especially useful for engaging with the legacy of slavery, the cultural development of blackness, and forms of everyday resistance.
https://dl1.cuni.cz/pluginfile.php/756417/mod_resource/content/1/Gilroy%20Black%20Atlantic.pdf
Imagined Communities: Reflections On The Origin And Spread Of Nationalism by Benedict Anderson
This text is important in understanding the nature of both high colonialism and fascism, perhaps now more than ever. Anderson examines the political manipulation and agenda of cultural production, that is the propagandised, artificial act of nation building. This analyses the development of nation states as the norm of political unity in historiographical terms, as symptomatic of old school European imperialism. Today we may see this reflected in Brexit or MAGA, but lebensraum and zionism are just as evident in the analysis.
https://is.muni.cz/el/1423/jaro2016/SOC757/um/6181696/Benedict_Anderson_Imagined_Communities.pdf
Discipline And Punish: The Birth Of The Prison by Michel Foucault
Honestly, I am not sure if this should be on this list; I would certainly not call it leftist. That said, it is a very important source to inform our perceptions of the nature of institutional power and abuse. It is also unquestionable that many of the pre-eminent left-leaning scholars of the past fifty years have been heavily influenced, willing or not, by Foucault and his post-structuralist ilk. A worthwhile read, especially for queer readers, but take with a liberal (zing!) helping of salt.
https://monoskop.org/images/4/43/Foucault_Michel_Discipline_and_Punish_The_Birth_of_the_Prison_1977_1995.pdf
Trouble In Paradise: From The End Of History To The End Of Capitalism by Slavoj Žižek
Probably just don’t read this, it amounts to self-torture. Okay but seriously, I wanted to include Žižek (perhaps against my better judgement), but he is probably best seen as a lesson in recognising theorists as fallible, requiring our criticism rather than being followed blindly. I like Žižek, but take him as a kind of clown provocateur who may lead us to explore interesting ideas. He makes good points, but he also… Doesn’t… Watch a couple youtube videos and decide if you can stomach him before diving in.
Additional highly recommended authors (with whom I am not familiar enough to give meaningful descriptions or specific recommended texts) (let me know if you find anything of significant value from among these, as I am likely unaware!):
Theodor Adorno (of the Frankfurt School, which also included Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, and Walter Benjamin, all of whom I’d likewise recommend but with whom I have only passing familiarity) was a sociologist and musicologist whose aesthetic analyses are incredibly rich and insightful, and heavily influential on 20th Century Marxist theory.
Sara Ahmed is a significant voice in Third Wave Feminist criticism, engaging with queer theory, postcoloniality, intersectionality, and identity politics, of particular interest to international praxis.
Mikhail Bakhtin was a critic and scholar whose theories on semiotics, language, and literature heavily guided the development of structuralist thought as well as later Marxist philosophy.
Mikhail Bakunin is perhaps the closest thing to anarchist orthodoxy. Consistently involved with revolutionary action, he is known as a staunch critic of Marxist rhetoric, and a seminal influence on anti-authoritarian movements.
Silvia Federici is a Marxist feminist who has contributed significant work regarding women’s unpaid labour and the capitalist subversion of the commons in historiographical contexts.
Mark Fisher was a leftist critic whose writing on music, film, and pop culture was intimately engaged with postmodernity, structuralist thought, and most importantly Marxist aesthetics.
Che Guevara was a major contributor to revolutionary efforts internationally, most notably and successfully in Cuba. His writing is robustly pragmatic as well as eloquent, and offers practical insight to leftist action.
Hồ Chí Minh was a revolutionary communist leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and a significant contributor to revolutionary communist theory and anti-imperialist practice.
C.L.R. James is a significant voice in 20th Century (especially black) Marxist theory, engaging with and criticising Trotskyist principles and the role of ethnic minorities in revolutionary and democratic political movements.
Joel Kovel was a researcher known as the founder of ecosocialism. His work spans a wide array of subjects, but generally tends to return to deconstructing capitalism in its highest stage.
György Lukács was a critic who contributed heavily to the Western Marxism of the Frankfurt School and engaged with aesthetics and traditions of Marx’s philosophical ideology in contrast with Soviet policy of the time.
Rosa Luxemburg was a revolutionary socialist organiser, publisher, and economist, directly engaged in practical leftist activity internationally for a significant part of the early 20th Century.
Mao Zedong was a revolutionary communist, founder and Chairman of the People’s Republic of China, and a prolific contributor to Marxism-Leninism(-Maoism), which he adapted to the material conditions outside the Western imperial core.
Huey P. Newton was the co-founder of the Black Panther Party and a vital force in the spread and accessibility of communist thought and practical internationalism, not to mention black revolutionary tactics.
Léopold Sédar Senghor was a poet-turned-politician who served as Senegal’s first president and established the basis for African socialism. Also central to postcolonial theory, and a leader of the Négritude movement.
I hope this list may be useful. (I would also be interested to see the recommendations of others!) Happy reading, comrades. We have nothing to lose but our chains.
