Described as ‘the most original and innovative Latin American Marxist’ by Michael Löwy – a sentiment repeated by many others – the work of José Carlos Mariátegui remains a largely untapped resource in the Western Marxist tradition outside of specialist circles. This review essay considers the recent publication of a translation and anthology of Mariátegui’s work into English by Harry Vanden and Mark Becker as a first step towards correcting this trend. It highlights Mariátegui’s understanding of race, power, and identity; (...) the combined and uneven development of capital; and the role of myth and voluntarism in revolutionary struggle as key points in which the early-twentieth-century Peruvian contributes to contemporary debates in Marxist praxis in Latin America and beyond. (shrink)

After a decade in power, Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution faces a newly multilateral Washington DC and global capitalism’s most significant crisis in a generation. In order to properly understand the hopes and impediments for the future of the Revolution, I argue, it is first necessary to consider the current trajectory and series of accomplishments it has made. In this review-essay, I consider the three most recent and comprehensive works on the foreign and domestic situations in Venezuela in English ‐ Eva Golinger’s (...) Bush vs Chávez, Gregory Wilpert’s Changing Venezuela by Taking Power, and Steve Ellner’s Rethinking Venezuelan Politics. (shrink)