ResoluteReader

Friday, July 11, 2025

John Molyneux - What is the real Marxist Tradition?

What is the real Marxist Tradition? is a remarkable short work that was written to fight for a clear understanding of Marxism in one of the hardest, recent, periods for Marxists. First published as an article in 1983 and then republished by the SWP in 1985 as a book, it sought to rescue Marxism as a theory of international proletarian revolution, at a time when Marxism was categorically identified with the State Capitalist regimes of Eastern Europe, and the working class was in retreat.

Reading it, particularly the 1985 edition which has a cover depicting Lenin, Trotsky, Luxembourg, Marx and others from the classical Marxist tradition as well as Castro, Kautsky, Stalin and Mao, I expected it initially to be a critique of each of these individual's politics. Instead this is a much more nuanced study of Marxism, which begins with Marxism as a totality of ideas, that arise out of the working class, which in turn allows Molyneux to discuss the limits of Stalinism, Maoism etc through a discussion of the class basis of their own ideologies.

As I have been asked to write more on this elsewhere, I'll finish this review here and encourage activists to read Molyneux's work online. Watch this space for more.

Laura Elliott - Awakened

Highly recommended by reviewers, I was attracted to Awakened despite my usual rejection of the horror genre. It's pretext sounded intriguing. In a future Britain, a small group of scientists hide out in the Tower of London, protecting themselves from what is essentially a zombie horde outside. The difference here is that the zombies are the result of experiments by the scientists themselves to make people more efficient and profitable by eliminating the need for sleep.

As I said, it's intriguing. The story focuses on the arrival of a stranger, one of the sleepless, who seems to not be quite the same as the others. With him arrives a pregnant woman, proving perhaps that things outside of the Tower are very different. The impact of this arrival on the community, and in particular the narrator, Thea Chares is the subject of the rest of the novel. Thea has her own secrets and reason for her presence in the Tower. She's a scientist, one of those brought in by the eccentric billionaire who developed the chip that ended sleep. Thea's transformation through her developing relationship with Vladimir, the name adopted by the monster from outside, is the core of the story. Unfortunately I found it difficult to follow, events being confusingly described at times, and perhaps deliberately, Laura Elliott ends of drowning out the individual storylines with brooding menance. I had to read the ending several times to really work out what was being said, and found myself not that impressed. Ironically I didn't think the book was that much of a work of horror. It is, perhaps, more of book of implied violence. But I did also think that Laura Elliott had hit upon a good point to start from - if the billionaires could find a way of making us work through our sleeping hours they would. And they'd market it as a good thing for us, while they raked in the coins. This, perhaps, is the actual horror.

Monday, July 07, 2025

Herman Lehmann - Nine Years Among the Indians 1870-1879

In May 1870, Herman Lehmann and his brother Willie, aged 11 and 8 respectively, were kidnapped by Apache Indians and taken from their family farm in Texas. A few days later, in a brief battle with troops, Willie escaped and remarkably got home. Herman was to spend the next nine years away from his family living with the Apache and eventually the Comanche.

Nine Years Among the Indians is Lehmann's famous memoir of his captivity and then life among the two tribes. Initially the Indians feared he would escape, and he was brutally assaulted and imprisoned. Soon however he became ingratiated into the tribe and began to learn how to live, hunt and fight among the Apache. His captors told Lehmann that his family had been killed, and this probably led Lehmann entering the tribe more easily. He seems to have become an accomplished fighter and horserider, and eventually as much a part of the tribe as anyone else - leading raids and fighting against the "whites".

Lehmann's account demonstrates a remarkable memory, given it was written towards the end of his life. While most people today will probably read it for its eyewitness account of traditional camp life, the reader must also be wary. Writing for a "white" audience Lehmann seems to dwell on the brutality and violence of the Apache and the Commanche, and while expressing sympathy for the Indians he tends to celebrate the "civilising" affect of colonial society. This is, it should be said, particuarly noticeable in the introduction by one J. Marvin Hunter, whom produced the book from Lehmann's dictation. Hunter's introduction is full of racism and makes for uncomfortable reading.

Nonetheless there's a lot of interesting material, especially about life among the tribes, and the type of relationships between the Indians inside the tribe and with others. The internal disputes which led to Lehmann leaving the Apache and after many months alone, joining the Commanche are worth reading. But so are the account of the battle with the Texas Rangers (and the account of the same encounter from the other side). This, no doubt, inspired many a tale including similar events in Larry McMurtry's Comanche Moon.

Despite its short length, there is plenty to engage in here, and the difficulties that Lehmann found when he did eventually return to his family are touching. There's an amusing account of how he disrupted a Methodist revival with his Indian dancing, leading to him being banned from religious services until he was brought back to "civilised" behaviour. Lehmann's conclusion no doubt plays to his audience, but at least retains an understanding of who he was, and the life he was never quite able to leave behind. He dedicates the work to his mother, "and to those noble brothers and sisters I owe all for my restoration, for if it had not been for them I would today be an Indian still." If you can get past the appallingly dated language there's a lot here.

Sunday, June 29, 2025

Douglas Newton - The Darkest Days: The truth behind Britain's rush to war, 1914

Why did Britain go to war in 1914? There are some old lies that explain this: "poor little Belgium", German troops "murdering babies" and that old canard, "for the defence of democracy". There are some more complex lies - that Britain was pulled into the war because of treaties and obligations to France and Russia, which place the war as an outgrowth of the complex game of thrones that Europe was in the early 20th century. However, Douglas Newton's brilliant book argues something very different. Britain went to war in 1914 because a small group of right-wing politicians, egged on and encouraged by a fanatically anti-German right-wing media pushed the boundaries at every stage making war more and more likely with every hour that passed.

Newton's book argues that Britain's involvement in the war was not inevitable. Indeed Europe wide, and eventual global war, was not inevitable either. But once Britain entered the conflict World War became a reality. Not least because the very first thing the British military did was to move to seize German colonial assets.

The book covers a relatively short space of time. Remembering that old quip by Lenin, that there are "weeks when decades happen", the few days before in early August 1914 saw a mass of meetings, telegrams, arguments and diplomacy. It also saw a lot of anti-war organising, protest, resignations from the cabinet and a British government on the brink of collapse. The latter is usually neglected by historians.

War, according to Newton, was not inevitable primarily because there were significant sections of the British population - from the working classes to the liberal cabinet - that did not want war. Newton's focus is very much the machinations of the cabinet and leading politicians. In the cabinet, four ministers John Burns, John Morley, John Simon and Lord Beaumont offerd their resignations at varous stages as the crisis progressed. These were principled men, whose opposition to the war was based on politics as well as morals and religion. However they were men who were wedded to the parliamentary system and national interests. Despite their resignations PM Herbert Asquith kept this crucial news from the British people and from parliament. Unwilling to allow a chink to appear in the armour of the British government on the verge of war, the four rebels kept their mouths shut. Asquith worked hard to pressure them to keep quiet, and this allowed the government to portray themselves as united.

The drive to war was however also engineered by those who wanted it. Winston Churchill in particular as First Lord of the Admiralty, played an inglorious (and undemocratic) role, escalated tensions by mobilising and concentrating the British navy, encouraging a feeling of crisis and putting further pressure on the German leadership.

Perhaps the most shocking thing to those who have faith in parliamentary process is that the declaration of war was never put to the test of parliamentary debate. Asquith's cleverness in hiding the fractures in the cabinet meant that when he spoke to Parliament and implied an ultimatum was being presented to Germany,

the Radicals did not challenge Asquith. Why? Perhaps they still believd in the promised major debate before any declaration of war. But most likely, the Radicals chose to tread cuatiously and wait for confirmation of the facts from Belgium. It is possible, too, that the suddend adjournment of the House, under a recent and controversial Speaker's ruling 'that was little understood', caught the Radicals off guard.

The Radicals, says Newton, "simply lost their courage and chose silence on Tuesday 4 August". But it was not even the whole cabinet that made the decision for war. Newton points out that decision was made by "a small clique bunkered down in the Cabinet room. A mere coffee table's worth of the Cabinet". Later Newton adds, the King and three members of the Pricy Council declared war: "Faithfully reflecting the pre-democratic order, four men had launched Britain's war. There was not one elected man among them."

It was a sordid process of duplicity and cowardice. But it was not inevitable. Not least because as the crisis rapidly spiriled all sorts of activists, including trade unions, mobilised to try and stop the war. If I was worried that Newton's book would solely focus on the machinations of the political class, I was disabused of this fear by the chapters looking at the protest meetings, anti-war rallies and the newspapers of those who opposed the war. Despite the shortness of time, impressive numbers mobilised, and had those in the cabinet made their resignations public, its possible that this movement would have grown phenomenally and Britain would have been unable to join the conflict. Millions of lives might have been saved. It is in this spirit that Douglas Newton concludes his wonderful book:

How should Britain's Great War be remembered after a century? In a 'national spirit'? Perhaps the idea that for Britain there was no alternative to war, no error in her handling of the crisis, and no deed left undone in pursuit of peace is an essential consolation. But it is fairy dust. There is really only one story worth telling about the Great War: it was a common European tragedy - a filthy, disgusting and hideous episode of industrialised killing. Not the first, and not the last. It was unredeemed by victory. The uplifting element of the story lies in the struggle to avert it.

This is a remarkable book that will be denounced for its revisionism. But as we live in a world where nations commit genocide and go unpunished; Presidents bomb enemies without debate among their elected representatives and arms spending spirals upwards, its a story worth learning.

Sunday, June 22, 2025

Olivier de Schutter - The Poverty of Growth

There are a now a plethora of books and articles about degrowth from a left and liberal point of view that show how capitalism's insatiable drive for growth delivers inequality, poverty and environmental injustice. Some of these books are very good, extending the critique of growth into a critique of capitalism itself and arguing for an alternative society. Others pretend that capitalism can exist without growth, or somehow imagine a gradual shift to a non-growth society without any clear vision of how this could happen.

Surprisingly this short book had its origins in a meeting between the author and Pope Francis in 2022 where Olivier De Schutter was challenged to "identify certain levels that could be used to eradicate" global poverty. His solutions, that make up this book, place the book firmly in the second type of book about growth - its an attempt to square the circle.

This becomes clear from the preface. de Schutter writes:

Poverty and inequalities should not be seen as an inevitable consequence of the progress of capitalism that we should tolerate before trying to remedy their impacts: they should be seen, instead, as a symptom of an economy that has become ill-suited to the aim of a shared and sustainable prosperity. We must now move from an extractive and predatory economy to a non-violent economy, from an economy that responds to the demand expressed by the superior purchasting power of the rich to one that caters to the basic needds of the poor... etc

The idea that there was a period when capitalism was not ill-suited to providing a shared and sustainable society is laughable. Exploitation and oppression are inbuilt into a system where growth, based on the accumulation of capital, is not an adjunct to modern neoliberal economics, but a central part of how the system functions.

Central to de Schutter's analysis and critique here is not a systematic exploration of the capitalism's exploitation, nor the centrality of accumulation, rather its a vision of capitalism as a system of supply and demand. It makes for a weak analysis both of systemic problems and solutions. Take this annoying sentence: "We all know of people around us who travel by air to exotic holiday destrinations because they drive a hybrid car during the year."

We no, we don't ALL know such people, and even if we did, this tells us nothing about how the system functions. Its a surface level reflection of the way production is geared under capitalism.

The best parts of this book are those that expose the inequality and exploitation, and sheer destructiveness of the modern economy. It is also interesting that de Schutter begins by saying that it is the "world of work" where we need to start shifting this. He paints a charming liberal picture of a world with less work, equal pay, more rest time and workplace democracy. But there's no real attempt to discuss how we, as workers, could win that world. How do we challenge the right and the far-right? How do we take on the capitalist state which exists to perpetuate the status quo and the interests of the system? Is it enough to vote for more progressive parties? And what do you do when those parties go back on their plans and expand the fossil fuel economy in the interest of capitalism. De Schutter has not strategy and no agency of change. Which is why it is so sad that writers like him ignore the work of Karl Marx - not for pedantic ideological reasons, but because Marx's analysis of accumulation led him to identify the working class as the gravediggers of the system.

Tragically this makes this particular work of growth and poverty indisinguishable from a dozen other similar books, and fails to build on the more radical work of the best degrowthers such as Jason Hickel. I'd look elsewhere. My own article here offers some thoughts.

Tuesday, June 17, 2025

Andrew Bradstock - Faith in the Revolution: The political theologies of Müntzer and Winstanley

This is a fascinating little book. Its author is a Christian radical whose purpose in exploring the ideas of the German radical Thomas Müntzer and the English revolutionary Digger Gerrard Winstanley is to try and understand the role of Christianity in the struggle for revolution. Whether you have an opinion on that or not, Andrew Bradstock's summary of both these fascinating figures is very useful and interesting for radicals today.

Bradstock begins with Müntzer. On this blog I've reviewed many books about Müntzer and the German Peasants' War that provided the context for his revolutionary ideas. Müntzer's starting point was, in the words of Bradstock, a "commitment to a transformation of the world", but he cautions that Müntzer

takes up the cause of the poor and oppressed as much from a concern about the spiritual consequneces of such oppression as anything else. Indeed, his main worry is that, because the people have to work day in and day out to survive, they have no time to attend to the health of their souls, and are forced to reply for spiritual guidance upon the learned scholars and priests; and thus they never get to hear about the possibliilty of receiving a revelation from God.

This is an important point about Müntzer (and also, I think about Winstanley). He was a religious thinker before he was a social activist, but in becoming a social revolutionary Müntzer was not breaking from his revolutionary politics, but extending his religious activity and thinking. Müntzer "never envisaged fighting the last battle alone" - he did not see himself as a the person who was the vessel for God's actions. He say an enlightened minority the "elect" as being the people who would change the world and humanity. The non-elect were "destined for eternal damnation" and the elect would be saved. Who was who?

The key to such knowledge... is to be found in the concept of urteyl, judgement, a gift of God to the elect by which they are enabled to know themselves to be among the chosen, and to recognised those who are the ungodly. This concept is essential for Müntzer and vital for an understanding of his leagues [his organisations], his apocalyptic, and his participation in the peasants' struggle.

Bradstock points out that Müntzer's thinking on the elect developed. But towards the end of his life he was seeing the elect as being the same as "the poor and materially oppressed common folk". He made "the peasants' cause his own". It is tempting to draw an analogy here between Müntzer's concept of the enlightened few changing the world and Anarchist ideas of a minority changing the world for the masses. It's also possible that Müntzer was better than the average Anarchist in this sense because he understood that the elect were a mass social force. Though he doesn't seem to have abandoned his "two-tier conception of humanity".

How does this compare with Winstanley's thought? Winstanley was also shaped by the struggle around him, though England in the 17th century was much more economically developed than Germany in Müntzer's time. Winstanley was writing during and following a revolutionary movement that had beheaded a King, so his revolutionary policies in some ways are closer to modern revolutionary ideas than Münzter's. But Bradstock writes that:

Had Winstanley's millenarianism not been geuine - had he, in other words, truly been a secular thinker - it is at least arguable that he could have produced a more revolutionary programme than he did, since by interpreting the political struggle in which he was egaged religiously he failed to see it in a true historical perspective. Hi millenarianism, in other words, made it 'unnecessary' for him to demonstrate how it was possible for his programme to be realised.

I've written elsewhere on the brilliance of Winstanley's "vision of utopia". Here I think Bradstock is right. Müntzer understood that the, and the rest of the elect, had to fight. Winstanley didn't grasp that there were barriers to the implementation of his vision, so he tried to simply go out an enact it - digging on St George's Hill. Both leaders were however defeated because they underestimated their opponents and the historical context of what they were trying to win.

How does Bradstock's analysis fit with other revolutionary thinkers? He is at pains to criticise Engels' "analysis of Müntzer". This he says is basically an argument that religion is irrelevant to their struggles. He does this on a reading of Engels on the Peasants' War where Engels says that "the class struggles of that day were clothed in religious shibboleths... [but] this changed nothing and is easily explained by the conditions of the time." Bradstock here concludes that Engels (and thus all Marxists) are saying that "the presence of religious language in the revolutionary programme of a Müntzer or a Winstanley is politically insignificant".

But this is a strange conclusion to come too, as neither Marx nor Engels thought this. They understood that religion arose in an material circumstance, and their writings on the Reformation, Luther and Müntzer reflect this analysis. So it's a strange to critique Engels for making an argument that is at the root of their materialist theory of history. Nonetheless, nowhere does Engels or Marx argue that the religious language of Münzter doesn't matter. Indeed quite the opposite. Both would have understood the centrality of Reformation thinking to the programme of Müntzer, while understanding that these ideas emerged from the economic and social context.

Indeed despite Bradstock's clarity on some of the ideas of both the revolutionary figures he is discussing, he underplays the differences in economic, social and political development of the two contexts, which weakens his analysis somewhat.

The final section of the book is Bradstock's attempt to grapple with the issue that is central for him. What can Christianity offer revolution? Here he rightly emphasises the way that religion can be a force that encourages, inspires and offers guidance. He notes the importance of Christian thinking to radical forces in Nicaragua in the 1979 revolution as well as libertion theologists in South America. Too often though he falls back on radicalism being something brought from outside - just as Winstanley and Müntzer tried to do:

The relationship between scientific analysis and utopian visions is broadly dialectical: the former, by exposing the reality of the situation and the real possibilities for change, opens up new horizons for revolutionary activity, while utopian thinking, with its overarching vision of new people in new relationships, serves to stimulate science to explore new fields of possibility.

I think this is wrong. No mass revolutionary movement has been built because it started from utopian visions. Rather, in the case of the most successful of those movements, the visions have emerged out of the concrete reality of mass struggle. The Soviets and Workers Councils of the 1905, 1917 and 1919 revolutions in Russian and Germany were not pre-planned. They emerged because they were organs of struggle that did, or might have, become the basis for a new way of organising society.

Unsurprisingly, as a Christian, Bradstock concludes that his religion makes revolutionaries better because they have "the certainty that neither they nor their effort will ultimately be meaningless or lost". It is, in my opinion, a little patronising to assume that non-religious, or non-Christian, revolutionaries might not feel the same. In either event, the belief in an afterlife shouldn't be some sort of get out clause for revolutionaries. What really matters is people's concrete engagement in the struggle, and the politics and theory that emerges from the testing of their ideas in practice. While Faith in Revolution is a book that I enjoyed reading this was more so for the author's penetrating insights into the ideas of two key radical figures, and less for his musings on Christianity and revolution.

Monday, June 16, 2025

Larry McMurtry - Comanche Moon

In chronological order Commanche Moon is the second book in the series that Larry McMurtry wrote about the Texas Rangers Woodrow Call and Agustus McCrae. In the order of writing though, it was the fourth. This is in itself interesting, because it means that the book is both a prequel to the pulitzer winning Lonesome Dove, and also a full stop at the end of the stories of the two characters.

But it is as a prequel to Lonesome Dove that the book will be mostly judged. Here I found the work slightly wanting. This isn't because it is badly written, but rather that the plot is hung less around the story and more around the need to manouevre the characters (both major and minor) into the positions they occupy at the beginning of Lonesome Dove. So obvious is this, that the Texas Rangers have a brief hiatus at the eponymous settlement to show it at a slightly earlier stage in its limited development.

Because of this the book sometimes crams in some story arcs. Characters die off rather rapidly, and not always because of murder. Some of the stories seem unfinished. It's unclear what Ahumado's disappearance is all about - there's certainly no closure in these pages - which means that main arc of the first third of the book is left hanging. There's no purpose to this part of the story other than to introduce characters later. If, when reviewing Lonesome Dove, I could say I was impressed by the strength and centrality of the female characters, here they are mostly there as foils for the men. The exception is the portrayal of how surviving female victims of Native American attacks are shunned by white society afterward.

Unlike earlier works there is more focus on Native Americans, though unfortunately like earlier works, most Indians are depicted as bloodthirsty savages. At least Buffalo Hump a Commanche chief in this book has his violence given context, and the depiction of the actual raid he led is rather well done - even if there is a little too much lingering on violence against the Whites.

McMurtry is, to be fair, more sympathetic to the Native Americans here than I was used too. Though the main characters are either violent sadists (also true of Ahumado) or eccentric wanderers. Not great really.

Looking at the book as the end of the story, despite its position chronologically, makes the book somewhat more satisfying. Its easy to read this and find Lonesome Dove just around the corner, which makes the reader feel the ending is merely a pause. The love/hate relationship of the two characters, scarred by battle, love and loss, positions them well for their roles in Dove. But the novel was undermined for me by its transitional nature. Read in chronological order would be my advice - but understand that Dove is by far the better, and more rounded novel.

Saturday, June 07, 2025

Philip Marfleet - Palestine, Imperialism and the Struggle for Freedom

As the genocide in Gaza continues, millions of people around the world are trying to understand the reason for Israel's continued assault on the Palestinians. If my personal experience is anything to go by, there can be few workplaces, coffee shops or trade union meetings were there have not been discussions about the causes of the occupation and the possibilities of peace. So the publication of Philip Marfleet's new book Palestine, Imperialism and the Struggle for Freedom should be welcomed because it seeks to explain the current conflict in the context of a century of "colonial occupation, displacements and dispossession". Crucially, and unusually for even left-wing books on the subject, Marfleet's book puts Palestinian action and resistance at the heart of the history.

Marfleet begins with the Zionist "vision" of a "public project for colonisation by Zionist settlers". He writes:

As the Ottoman Empire went into rapid decline Britain became the focus of Zionists' attention. Now the movement's leading figure was Chaim Weizmann, who was convinced that it must win support from within the British ruling class on the baiss that a Jewish state could serve the best interests of Britain's emprie. Weizmann was able to deal directly with members of the British government. During the First World War, as Britain advanced on German-Ottoman forces in Palesinte, he lobbied decision-makes in London, allying with the most aggressive imperial stategists - ministers who sought to extend British control across the Middle East.

These close historic links between Zionism, colonialism and imperialist interests are crucial to explain the modern actions of the Israeli state and the close relationship it has with Western powers. Marfleet shows how the Zionist state that was created in 1948 did not invent repression of the Palestinian people, instead it "learnt from the British". He writes:

Britain's ideologues of empire and those who administered it colonial territories were not only racial supremacists but also designed and implemented policies that involved savage represion. As Zionist settlement in Palestine accelerated, Britain was crushing resistance in neighbouring Egypt and Iraq.

In Egypt in 1919, a rebellion involved "members of all the country's ethno-religious communities: significantly, Jews joined Muslims and Christians in the uprising". But the British "colonial regime used all means against the movement". Thousands were killed.

The point here is that there is no automatic divide between the religious peoples of the region. In fact, as Marfleet shows, Jews, Muslims and Christians lived side-by-side for centuries. One of the lessons the British taught the emerging Israeli state was how to divide and rule.

But it is the resistance of the Palestinians that is central to Marfleet's account. This began long before the creation of the Israeli state in 1948. In 1936 there was a massive revolutionary movement in Palestine. This history is seldom told, and much of it was new to me. It is one of the most fascinating parts of Marfleet's book. This revolution was incredible. Zionist militias were violently assaulting Palestinian villages, British colonial rulers were oppression and restricting Palestinian freedoms and resistance exploded. Marfleet places the revolution in the context of a developing industrial capitalist economy:

Change accelerated during the 1920s as Britain established the Mandate regime and Jewish settlement intensified. More and more peasants were forced from the land but - as Britain favoured industrial and infrastructural defvelopment for the Jewish sector and Jewish organisations impements the policy of Hebrew labour - many were rapidly impoverished.... by 1936 the majority of workers in Jaffa, a key industrial centre, were living below subsistence level. Industrial workers, semi-proletarians of the countryside, the peasants and the urban poor not only faced a European power and an emerging colonial-settler regime but also the reality of immiseration. It was in these circumstance that the uprising 'spread like wildfire, gripping the cities and country alike and giving rise to an unprecedeted armed insurrection'.

Space precludes any further summary of Marfleet's account of this extraordinary rebellion. But here we see one of the first examples of a theme which Marfleet returns to time and again - the way that Palestinian resistance sparks rebellion elsewhere. The 1936 "Palestinian intifada also stimulated solidarity across the Arab region. In Egypt there were demonstrations of support and the Muslim Broptherhood declared backing for the uprising".

Marfleet tells how the establishment of the Israeli state required the systematic displacement and violent oppression of the Palestinian people, as well as confrontations with the Arab states. In doing this Israel became a crucial ally of Western Imperialism, particularly of the US, post World War II.

Importantly Marfleet shows how the failure of the leaders of the Arab world to build real solidarity with the Palestinians, and the limitations of the Palestinian leadership which became focused on the creation of a Palestinian state, undermined the wider struggle for freedom. But while Marfleet is rightly critical of some of the Palestinian leadership, he also notes how the cause of Palestinian oppression remains the Israeli state. He quotes Martin Shaw, a "pioneer figure in Genocide Studies" who said in 2010:

We should view Israel's destruction of large parts of Arab society in Palestine in 1948 not simply through the perspective of settler-colonial genocide, but as an extension of the exclusivist nationalism which had recently brought about extensive genocidal violence in the European war.

This is, tragically, an ongoing process. Marfleet quotes from the genocide historian Mark Levene's work in 2024:

The target of Israel's offensive could not realistically be Hamas, said Levene, for the organisation 'will redeploy from underneath the rubble at will'. Referencing the pioneering work of Rafael Lemkin, [Levene] saw Israel's war as 'a conscious, wilful effort to destroy the integrity of a society'. Levene concluded: 'The charge of genocide is legitimate.'

But as Marfleet shows this genocide arises out of global imperialist interests and the nature of the settler-colonial state. It means that the solution, in terms of peace in the region, cannot be one with two states side by side, but rather a single state were people of all faiths, Jews, Muslims, Christians and none, live together. This has been the case in the past and could be in the future. The importance of Palestinian resistance is thus in part their ability to inspire and shape to mobilise and encourage resistance elsewhere in the world. In particular that of the massive working classes of the region. These, Marfleet argues are the force that can fundamentally transform the region.

Palestine, Imperialism and the Struggle for Freedom is thus a book that stands out from among many other books about the history of the region, because it has an emancipatory vision of the struggle to liberate Palestine. It locates Israeli's oppression of Palestine in a historical process and argues that struggle from below is the force that stop it.

Marfleet is a long standing socialist and has written and studied the Middle East for many years. An earlier book of his on the 1987 Intifada became a crucial text for a generation of socialists. This new book ought to play the same role for new generations of radicals.