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csalafia's review
informative
fast-paced
4.25
For anyone who wants to better understand what socialism is, this book is an easy, yet informative, read.
klagge's review against another edition
4.0
At the aforementioned friends' weekend in January, we also had a Revolution Book Exchange. This was the book I picked out of the pool (I gave _The New Jim Crow_). It's written by the editors and contributors of Jacobin magazine, a great publication that Elise got me a subscription to last year.
Most of it wasn't really news to me, which I guess means I'm beyond the ABCs! One essay that I particularly liked was "What about racism?" by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, which addresses an issue that came up a lot in the Sanders campaign: the relationship between socialism and anti-racism. Taylor gives a lot of interesting history and talks about the way racism has often served as a "divide and rule" method for the upper classes, not just in the US, but also for example in the UK (with anti-Irish racism)--in other words, arguing that class warfare and anti-racism are complements, not substitutes.
One other thing I wanted to mention about this (paper) book is the interesting approach the editors took to try to connect the essays to online content in Jacobin. All of the articles have unique index numbers, so that a link might look like "jacobinmag.com/?p=12345". So in the text, whenever an author cites a Jacobin article, it just gives in a sidebar the title and author, and the number (e.g. 22959). This obviously only works because the book is tied to a specific publication that gave some thought to having a concise system of URLs, but I appreciate the creative attempt to link a paper book to articles online.
Most of it wasn't really news to me, which I guess means I'm beyond the ABCs! One essay that I particularly liked was "What about racism?" by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, which addresses an issue that came up a lot in the Sanders campaign: the relationship between socialism and anti-racism. Taylor gives a lot of interesting history and talks about the way racism has often served as a "divide and rule" method for the upper classes, not just in the US, but also for example in the UK (with anti-Irish racism)--in other words, arguing that class warfare and anti-racism are complements, not substitutes.
One other thing I wanted to mention about this (paper) book is the interesting approach the editors took to try to connect the essays to online content in Jacobin. All of the articles have unique index numbers, so that a link might look like "jacobinmag.com/?p=12345". So in the text, whenever an author cites a Jacobin article, it just gives in a sidebar the title and author, and the number (e.g. 22959). This obviously only works because the book is tied to a specific publication that gave some thought to having a concise system of URLs, but I appreciate the creative attempt to link a paper book to articles online.
sashmcgash's review
3.0
Got this at the Open Books half-off sale for just $4! Couldn't resist the cute illustrations and also felt like I could benefit from a socialism for dummies. It was created by Jacobin which made me trust it more. Took a minute for my brain to warm up (I guess since the last thing I read was a romance novel?) and it got more readable as time went on. Some sections were more interesting and helpful than others. I think the best thing it did for me was connect socialism to anti-war movements, feminism, and anti-racism.
alleni's review
4.0
Really nice end sentiment, pretty inspiring, nothing shocking here. I just think that it starts to repeat itself a bit in parts, and Katch’s sections in particular read very much like “I’ve been on Twitter, I know how millennials talk”. Otherwise, really good primer.
noondaypaisley's review against another edition
3.0
some good and some bad introductory essay about socialist thought in the present day. I am not sure who would read it though.
mark_schoen's review against another edition
"In 1912, the Socialist Party won almost a million votes in the presidential election, had a membership of 120,000, and elected more than a thousand socialists to office. Mayors of cities like Berkeley, Flint, Milwaukee, and Schenectady were all socialists. So was a congressman, Victor Berger, and dozens of state officials."
mark_aeschlimann's review against another edition
5.0
Really enjoyed the stripped back approach to explaining the ideology, written in a way that anyone can understand.
seth_and_potatoes's review against another edition
4.0
I'm glad I picked this book up. The book delivers on its promise of providing an accessible understanding of socialism. The first 3-4 chapters give the reader a useful framework to understand, critique, and contrast. I think the total number of notes and comments I made in this book beat out any other book of this size.
Unfortunately, the latter chapters are much less solid as they are designed more as defenses against accusations than the first half's articulations. The problems begin with the "Kenny Loggins" chapter, which does an absolutely terrible job of trying to explain the different between private property and personal property. I didn't even understand that that was the key message until reading the wiki page. The next chapters respond to critiques of socialism based on history (ch 5), culture (ch 6), race (ch 7), gender (ch 8), and the environment (ch 9). Except for the historical chapter, unless one has interest in this line of questioning, the chapters tend to be skippable. To pick a favorite, the race and gender chapters were particularly well written while the environmental one, while posing something novel for me, barely delivered.
I felt the chapter on war (10) started to really scratch an interesting idea (something like a socialist version of just war theory), and I would have appreciated more. But, more detail would likely have been too much for an ABCs book.
One thing to be wary of is how ideological the book is. Naturally, it's taking a stance and defending it, as it should. But its usage of certain terminology rings hollow in this introductory book. I counted and there are 34 instances of "struggle" (in various forms) and 9 of "solidarity" (of various forms). There's nothing wrong with using terms often, or even of these using terms, but they should have been explained and justified before being relied on in this introductory book.
Unfortunately, the latter chapters are much less solid as they are designed more as defenses against accusations than the first half's articulations. The problems begin with the "Kenny Loggins" chapter, which does an absolutely terrible job of trying to explain the different between private property and personal property. I didn't even understand that that was the key message until reading the wiki page. The next chapters respond to critiques of socialism based on history (ch 5), culture (ch 6), race (ch 7), gender (ch 8), and the environment (ch 9). Except for the historical chapter, unless one has interest in this line of questioning, the chapters tend to be skippable. To pick a favorite, the race and gender chapters were particularly well written while the environmental one, while posing something novel for me, barely delivered.
I felt the chapter on war (10) started to really scratch an interesting idea (something like a socialist version of just war theory), and I would have appreciated more. But, more detail would likely have been too much for an ABCs book.
One thing to be wary of is how ideological the book is. Naturally, it's taking a stance and defending it, as it should. But its usage of certain terminology rings hollow in this introductory book. I counted and there are 34 instances of "struggle" (in various forms) and 9 of "solidarity" (of various forms). There's nothing wrong with using terms often, or even of these using terms, but they should have been explained and justified before being relied on in this introductory book.