Workers' Liberty Bookshop
Books recommended by the Alliance for Workers' Liberty.
In association with amazon.co.uk, we are seeking out books we think that socialists should read,
and, thanks to amazon, we're selling almost all of them at a discount. What's more, if you buy your books through this
facility you'll be helping to raise funds for the AWL too.
On these pages you can find:
Books
Capital Karl Marx
The classic, "Capital" combines vivid historical detail with economic analysis to produce a bitter denunciation of capitalist society. It has also proved to be the most influential work in social science in the 20th century; Marx did for social science what Darwin had done for biology.
No mere work of dry economics, Marx's great work depicts the unfolding of industrial capitalism as a tragic drama - with a message which has lost none of its relevance today.
This abridged edition takes account of the whole of Capital. It offers virtually all of Volume 1, which Marx himself published in 1867, excerpts from a new translation of "The Result of the Immediate Process of Production", and a selection of key chapters from Volume 3, which Engels published in 1895.
Karl Marx Francis Wheen
A major biography of the man who, more than any other, made the 20th century.
In this book Francis Wheen, for the first time, presents Marx the man in all his brilliance and frailty--as a poverty-stricken Prussian émigré who became a middle-class English gentleman; as an angry agitator who spent much of his adult life in scholarly silence in the British Museum Reading Room; as a gregarious and convivial host who fell out with almost all his friends; as a devoted family man who impregnated his housemaid and as a deeply earnest philosopher who loved drink, cigars and jokes.
Francis Wheen is a writer, broadcaster and journalist. His previous book, a life of Tom Driberg, was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize.
Introducing Marx Rius (Illustrator)
Devised by Mexican cartoonist, Rius, this text provides an introduction to Marx, as relevant today as he has ever been, as the world moves towards unregulated free-market economies.
The Communist Manifesto Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels
"A spectre is haunting Europe," Karl Marx and Frederic Engels wrote in 1848, "the spectre of Communism." This new edition of The Communist Manifesto, commemorating the 150th anniversary of its publication, includes an introduction by renowned historian Eric Hobsbawm which reminds us of the document's continued relevance.
Marx and Engels's critique of capitalism has proven remarkably prescient. Their spectre, manifested in the Manifesto's vivid prose, continues to haunt the capitalist world, and the power of the Manifesto remains in its call to arms of the world's working class.
Wage-Labour and Capital and Value, Price, and Profit Karl Marx
To organise effectively and agitate for socialism, we must understand the workings of capitalism.
These two pamphlets, now bound together, were produced by Marx during polemics inside the world's first proletarian movement.
Their arguments, that capitalism is inherently a system of exploitation and that there can be no common economic interest between bourgeois and worker, are still needed.
Capital : A Critique of Political Economy (Penguin Classics) Vol. 1 Karl Marx, Ben Fowkes (Translator)
Marx's major work was the product of 30 years' close study of the most advanced industrial society of his day. Marx devoted most of his adult life to analyzing the "laws of motion" of capitalism. The result was his contribution to a critique of political economy.
Capital: Volume 2 Karl Marx, David Fernbach (Translator), Ernest Mandel (Introduction)
Volume two of "Capital", Marx's major work.
Capital : A Critique of Political Economy (Penguin Classics) Vol. 3 Karl Marx, David Fernbach (Translator)
It is in this third volume that Marx sets out his central thesis that "the basic laws of motion of the capitalist mode of production lead to explosive crises and its ultimate collapse".
Here we find not only a sustained economic and social description of capitalism as a system and the bourgeoisie as a class but also a full statement of why declining rates of profit and periodic crises of overproduction spell the inevitable end of capitalism and the likely birth of a far better society. This book was published by Engels in 1894.
Grundrisse : Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (Penguin Classics) Karl Marx, Martin Nicolaus (Translator)
"Grundrisse" occupies a pivotal place in Marx's career, it also offers a unique picture of his methods of work. The work consists of seven notebooks on capital and on money. Drafted during the winter of 1857-8, Marx first explored the themes and thesis that dominate his later writings.
It is here that Marx sets out his own version of Hegel's "Dialectics", developed his mature views on labour, surplus value and profit and offered many fresh insights into alienation, automation, the restrictions of personality and recurrent economic crises produced by capitalism.
The Fate of the Russian Revolution Vol 1: Lost Texts of Critical Marxism Max Shachtman, Hal Draper, Clr James, Al Glotzer, Joseph Carter, Leon Trotsky, Sean Matgamna (Editor)
Tracing back a path through fifty years of wrong turnings by the Marxist movement, this collection of works by 'the forgotten Trotskyists' reveals an attempt to keep alive the principles and the politics of the revolutionary movement when all around the impact of Stalinism was twisting the very definitions of socialism, democracy and class.
On the Edge Will Hutton, Anthony Giddens
With the triumph of US-style democracy and an explosion of powerful new technologies, it seems increasingly probable that we are living through the greatest of all technological revolutions, inexorably drawing in every corner of our once huge globe.
So what are the implications? Global capitalism, as the title of On the Edge suggests, is "precarious and potentially dangerous".
This collection of reformist critiques of globalism reveals a world system beyond human reason. Notable though is the lack of insight into the only potential route out of the crisis.
The English Levellers Andrew Sharp (Editor)
The Levellers were a crucial component of a radically democratic movement during the civil wars in 17th-century England; they suggested the "levelling" of distinctions in rank and of property, even the holding of women in common.
This collection of 13 fully-annotated Leveller writings, including their famous "Agreements of the People", aims to contribute not only to the understanding of the English civil wars, but also to democratic theory.
The editor's introduction sets the Leveller ideas in their context and, together with a chronology, short biographies of the leading figures and a guide to further reading, should be of interest to students of the English civil wars, the history of political thought and the history of democratic ideas.
A People's History of England A.L. Morton
An accessible and refreshing history book. The first book on British history that anyone and everyone should read.
This work lays out the main outlines and most important turning points of British history - from the point of view of ordinary people.
The book has remained in print for more than 50 years.
The State and Revolution V.I. Lenin
Lenin's classic work on the relationship of the State to class struggle, and the nature of workers' revolution.
Ten Days That Shook the World John Reed, Nikolai Lenin, Harold Shukman (Introduction)
This account of the Russian Revolution by a western journalist has been admired worldwide since its first publication in 1919. Lenin endorsed it as "a truthful and most vivid exposition of the events so significant to the comprehension of what really is the Proletarian Revolution".
Already based in Europe and sympathetic to the cause of the Russian Revolution, Reed was able to observe dispassionately exactly what was going on and to find out not only what the Bolshevik leaders were doing, but to move among those on the streets and note down the experiences of the masses of ordinary people.
The Iron Heel Jack London, Leon Trotsky
Written in 1906, Jack London's novel presents a mixture of science fiction, romance, adventure and social polemic. A social revolution is brutally crushed by The Oligarchy, a vicious state machine which destroys and enslaves resistance to market forces.
How Solidarity Can Change the World Frederick Engels, Karl Kautsky, Rosa Luxemburg, Leon Trotsky, Sean Matgamna (Editor)
The international working class is the force for change in global capitalism. This collection of writings examines the relationship between the proletarian struggle for emancipation, the role of the revolutionary party, and the role of theory and ideas such as solidarity.
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State Friedrich Engels, Ichele Barratt (Introduction)
Ground-breaking in its time, and still substantial today, Engels' challeng to the myth of the 'family' is required reading in an age when politicians of all hues claim allegiance to 'family values'.
This edition has an introduction from Ichele Barratt, a feminist writer, who discusses the relevance for the modern feminist novement of Engle's conclusions about the family.
To the Finland Station Edmund Wilson
Wider in scope than almost any other book imaginable, this history of ideas charts the development of the political demands for freedom which culminated in the October Revolution.
An awesome and inspiring account of the aspirations towards revolution from the dreamers of the romantic period via Marx and Engels to Lenin's arrival at the Finland station in Petrograd in 1917 to deliver the April Theses.
Redemption Song Mike Marqusee
Uses the story of Muhammad Ali to look at the civil rights movement, anti-war
movement, popular culture, and the politics of the sixties. Redemption Song was
short-listed for the 1999 William Hill Sports Book of the Year award. It was
voted one of the twenty-five 'Books to Remember 2000' by the New York Public
Library.
Please note:
All the items listed on these pages are being sold by amazon.co.uk, and not by us.
This includes items such as The Fate of the Russian Revolution,
which are produced by the AWL. If you want to purchase these items directly from the AWL, which may be cheaper,
and certainly results in more of your money going to the AWL, you have two choices: if you can pay in US$ then
you can buy them online from our publications page. If you cannot pay in US$ then
we can only take payment by post. See the publications page for more details.