Domenico Losurdo: Liberalism: A Counter-History (2006/2011)

One of Europe’s leading intellectual historians deconstructs liberalism’s dark side.

In this definitive historical investigation, Italian author and philosopher Domenico Losurdo argues that from the outset liberalism, as a philosophical position and ideology, has been bound up with the most illiberal of policies: slavery, colonialism, genocide, racism and snobbery.

Narrating an intellectual history running from the eighteenth through to the twentieth centuries, Losurdo examines the thought of preeminent liberal writers such as Locke, Burke, Tocqueville, Constant, Bentham, and Sieyès, revealing the inner contradictions of an intellectual position that has exercised a formative influence on today’s politics. Among the dominant strains of liberalism, he discerns the counter-currents of more radical positions, lost in the constitution of the modern world order.

First published in Italian as Controstoria del Liberalismo, Gius. Laterza & Figli, 2006
Translated by Gregory Elliott
Publisher Verso Books, 2011
ISBN 1844676935, 9781844676934
375 pages

interview with the author, video (Pam Nogales and Ross Wolfe, The Platypus Review)

publisher
google books

PDF (updated on 2012-7-29)

David Graeber: Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011–) [EN, CZ, RU]

“Before there was money, there was debt.

Every economics textbook says the same thing: Money was invented to replace onerous and complicated barter system–to relieve ancient people from having to haul their goods to market. The problem with this version of history? There’s not a shred of evidence to support it.

Here anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom. He shows that for more than 5,000 years, since the beginning of the agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems. It is in this era, Graeber shows, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors.

With the passage of time, however, virtual credit money was replaced by gold and silver coins–and the system as a whole began to decline. Interest rates spiked and the indebted became slaves. And the system perpetuated itself with tremendously violent consequences, with only the rare intervention of kings and churches keeping the system from spiraling out of control. Debt: The First 5,000 Years is a fascinating chronicle of this little known history–as well as how it has defined human history, and what it means for the credit crisis of the present day and the future of our economy.”

Publisher Melville House, July 2011
ISBN 1933633867, 9781933633862
542 pages

Original essay (Mute, February 2009)
Illustrated essay with excerpts from the book (Triple Canopy, July 2010)
Video interview on Greece (Democracy Now!, July 2011)
Video interview (PBS: Need to Know, August 2011)

Review: Maryam Monalisa Gharavi (Social Text, 2011).

Publisher

Debt: The First 5,000 Years (English, 2011, updated on 2020-4-10)
Dluh: prvních 5000 let (Czech, trans. Lenka Beranová, 2012, 71 MB, added on 2020-4-10)
Dolg: pervyye 5000 let istorii (Russian, trans. A. Dunayev, 2015, 18 MB, added on 2020-4-10)

Terry Eagleton: After Theory (2003)

As heralded everywhere from NPR to the pages of the New York Times Magazine, a new era is underway in our colleges and universities: after a lengthy tenure, the dominance of postmodern theory has come to an end. In this timely and topical book, the legendary Terry Eagleton (“one of [our] best-known public intellectuals.”-Boston Globe) traces the rise and fall of these ideas from the 1960s through the 1990s, candidly assessing the resultant gains and losses. What’s needed now, After Theory argues, is a return to the big questions and grand narratives. Today’s global politics demand we pay attention to a range of topics that have gone ignored by the academy and public alike, from fundamentalism to objectivity, religion to ethics. Fresh, provocative, and consistently engaging, Eagleton’s latest salvo will challenge everyone looking to better grasp the state of the world.

Publisher Basic Books, 2003
ISBN 0465017738, 9780465017737
231 pages

publisher
google books

PDF (updated on 2012-7-31)