Books published by Verso Books

An original and decisive contribution to the contemporary debate on the central Marxist concept of ideology.

This study examines the place of politics in opera, uncovering the political dimension of an art form all too often considered as purely aesthetic. It takes readers on a tour of 200 years of great opera, from "The Marriage of Figaro" to "Nixon in China".

What would a viable free and democratic society look like? Poverty, exploitation, instability, hierarchy, subordination, environmental exhaustion, radical inequalities of wealth and powerit is not difficult to list capitalism's myriad injustices. But is there a preferable and workable alternative? Alternatives to Capitalism: Proposals for a Democratic Economy presents a debate between two such possibilities: Robin Hahnel's ';participatory economics' and Erik Olin Wright's ';real utopian' socialism. It is a detailed and rewarding discussion that illuminates a range of issues and dilemmas of crucial importance to any serious effort to build a better world.

A panoramic history of the culture of Depression-era America and the Popular Front.

Part of "Radical Thinkers" series, this work presents key texts by philosophers and thinkers. It offers a defense of the political possibilities of deconstruction by unlocking the ethical potential of Derrida's work.

Jean Baudrillard’s last book was about America. His new one is about cats, Foucault, Alfa Romeas, leukemia, Catholicism, the Berlin Wall, mattresses, Laurent Fabius, Jean-Paul II, roses, Antarctica, Lech Walesa, mud wrestling, Zinoviev,  porn films, snow, feminism, Rio, Jacques Lacan, Stevie Wonder, Palermo, DNA and terrorism.“Cool Memories is the other side of America, the disillusioned side, presented in the form of a diary, though not in the classical sense. I’m trying to grasp a world in all its silences and its brutality. Can you grasp a world when you’re no longer tied to it by some kind of ideological enthusiasm, or by traditional passions? Can things “tell” themselves through stories and fragments? These are some of the questions posed in a book which may seem melancholic. But then I think almost every diary is melancholic. Melancholy is in the very state of things.”

Bringing together contributions from workers employed in the new electronics and information industries with work from theorists and economics, politics and science, this title provides an up-to-date analysis of the complex relations between technology and work.

This history of the Weatherman Underground covers the origins, development and ultimate demise of the organization. Drawing on an array of documents, interviews with participants, and a knowledge of the history of the New Left, Jacobs gives an objective assessment of US 1960s radicalism.

This volume argues that reinvigorating today's fragile democratic institutions depends upon extending the role of "secondary associations" - associations intermediate between the state and the market - as vehicles representing citizens and for formulating and executing policy.

Jorge Luis Borges is generally acknowledged to be one of the 20th century's most significant writers. But, the fact that he is an Argentine writer is rarely discussed. This is an introduction to the work of Jorge Luis Borges.

This anthology charts some of the major developments and accomplishments in Shakespearian gender studies over the last two decades. Readings in individual essays include: "Much Ado About Nothing", "The Rape of Lucrece", "Hamlet", "Henry VI", "Othello", "The Tempest" and "Richard III".

In this volume, Sartre sets out the basic categories for the renovated theory of history that he believed was necessary for post-war Marxism. His formal aim is to establish the dialectical intelligibility of history itself, what he called "a totalization without a totalizer".

A collection of theoretical essays which were composed under a particular set of constraints - the need to explain the Marxist intellectual tradition within the bounds of literary criticism - thereby enlarging the conception of the literary text.

Presenting a collection of reports from the global South - India, South Africa, Colombia and Brazil, this book shows how, in some cases, a deepening of democracy results from the development of dual forms of participatory and representative systems, and points to the emergence of transnational networks of participatory democratic initiatives.

A collection of Dorothy Thompson's most important essays on English social history, written over the last 25 years. The book contains some previously unpublished work and includes essays on the Chartist movement and women's activism in early radical politics and 19th century popular politics.

Frigga Haug, one of Germany’s best-known feminist and Marxist critics, develops here a profound challenge both to women’s oppression and to what she sees as women’s ‘collusion’ in that oppression. Rejecting the essentialism of much feminist writing today, along with the denial of subjectivity that still permeates Marxism, Haug explores the connections between Marxist theory and the emancipation of women, a project which necessarily involves, as she explains, ¿diverting a powerful and long-standing anger into detective work.¿Under the headings of Socialization, Work and Politics, she combines the fruits of these investigations with the influential ¿memory-work¿ she has pioneered with women’s collectives, to throw startling new light on a wide range of themes and issues: personal ethics and public morality; daydreams, domesticity and consumerism; privatization, new technologies and the restructuring of the workplace; the evolution of women’s politics in Germany; the future of socialist feminism in the wake of Communism’s collapse.Above all, this is a book which strives to find new links between the micro-politics of daily life and the evolving structures of capitalism. ¿If we could find out why and when our hopes for life were buried,¿ Haug argues, ¿then we could try to take our history in our own hands.¿ Beyond Female Masochism provides the materials, and inspiration, to do just that.

Taking as their theme 'the sexualization of the body' - in particular women's sexualization - and the construction of gender, Frigga Haug and the other authors of this book make a contribution to these debates by taking their own bodies as objects of study.