Books published by Verso Books

These essays from the 1970s mark the inception of the distinctive project that Jacques Rancire has pursued across forty years, with four interwoven themes: the study of working-class identity, of its philosophical interpretation, of ';heretical' knowledge and of the relationship between work and leisure. For the short-lived journal Les Rvoltes Logiques, Rancire wrote on subjects ranging across a hundred years, from the California Gold Rush to trade-union collaboration with fascism, from early feminism to the ';dictatorship of the proletariat,' from the respectability of the Paris Exposition to the disrespectable carousing outside the Paris gates. Rancire characteristically combines telling historical detail with deep insight into the development of the popular mind. In a new preface, he explains why such ';rude words' as ';people,' ';factory,' ';proletarians' and ';revolution' still need to be spoken.

This text shows that the "New Economy" was a fragile phenomenon which was never freed from fundamental problems continuing to afflict the global economy. Dismantling the hype surrounding US expansion, it shows that transcending economic stagnation in the future is not yet a foregone conclusion.

Voices of Sartre, Lukacs, Chomsky, Harvey and others in conversation with NLR.

The authoritative first-hand account of contemporary Venezuela, Hugo Chvez places the country's controversial and charismatic president in historical perspective, and examines his plans and programs. Welcomed in 1999 by the inhabitants of the teeming shanty towns of Caracas as their potential savior, and greeted by Washington with considerable alarm, this former golpista-turned-democrat took up the aims and ambitions of Venezuela's liberator, simn Bolivar. Now in office for over a decade, President Chvez has undertaken the most wide-ranging transformation of oil-rich Venezuela for half a century, and dramatically affected the political debate throughout Latin America. In this updated edition, Richard Gott reflects on the achievements of the Bolivarian revolution, and the challenges that lie ahead.

Acclaimed author presents a decade's research toward creating an anthropology of the future.

The Invention of Paris is a tour through the streets and history of the French capital under the guidance of radical Parisian author and publisher Eric Hazan. Hazan reveals a city whose squares echo with the riots, rebellions and revolutions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Combining the raconteur's ear for a story with a historian's command of the facts, he introduces an incomparable cast of characters: the literati, the philosophers and the artists—Balzac, Baudelaire, Blanqui, Flaubert, Hugo, Maney, and Proust, of course; but also Doisneau, Nerval and Rousseau. It is a Paris dyed a deep red in its convictions. It is haunted and vitalized by the history of the barricades, which Hazan retells in rich detail. The Invention of Paris opens a window on the forgotten byways of the capital's vibrant and bloody past, revealing the city in striking new colors.

A broad-ranging collection of essays, this book contributes to a re-thinking about humans' relation to animals. It explores the diverse ways in which animals shape the formation of human identity, looking, for example, at the radicalization and gendering of animal images.

French philosopher with his groundbreaking study of Machiaveilli.

A major philosophical intervention into contemporary cultural theory that challenges the terms of its understanding of time and history.

Stinging revolutionary critique of contemporary society.

Classic work of geography analysing the new possibilities for spatial thought

Major French thinkers shows how the discourse of economics warps thought.

Lifts the lid on an artistic ferment which has defied every known law of the music business.

Leading radical intellectual tackles the many controversial interpretations of Wagner's work

In 1984, indigenous rights activist Rigoberta Mench published a harrowing account of life under a military dictatorship in Guatemala. That autobiographyI, Rigoberta Menchtransformed the study and understanding of modern Guatemalan history and brought its author international renown. She won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1992. At that point, she became the target of historians seeking to discredit her testimony and deny US complicity in the genocidal policies of the Guatemalan regime.Told here is the story of an unlettered woman who became the spokesperson for her people and clashed with the intellectual apologists of the world's most powerful nation. What happened to her autobiography speaks volumes about power, perception and race on the world stage. This critical companion to Mench's work will disabuse many readers of the lies that have been told about this courageous individual.

Against the centre groundSince 1989, politics has been a contest to see who can best serve the needs of the market. In this urgent and wideranging case for the prosecution, Tariq Ali looks at the people and events that have informed this development across the world. It is an investigation that reaches its logical conclusion with the presidency of Donald Trump, the success of En Marche! in France, and the dominance of Merkel's Germany throughout Europe.In this fully updated edition of The Extreme Centre, Ali considers recent events that suggest, despite everything, that there is room for hope. He finds promise in Latin America and at the edges of Europe. Emerging parties in Scotland, Greece, and Spain, formed out of the 2008 crisis, are offering new promise for democracy. Even in the UK, with the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, there are indications that the hegemony of the centre may be weaker than imagined.

Three radical perspectives on the critique of capitalismFor years, the critique of capitalism was lost from public discourse; the very word ';capitalism' sounded like a throwback to another era. Nothing could be further from the truth today. In this new intellectual atmosphere, Sociology, Capitalism, Critique is a contribution to the renewal of critical sociology, founded on an empirically grounded diagnosis of society's ills. The authors, Germany's leading critical sociologistsKlaus Drre, Stephan Lessenich, and Hartmut Rosashare a conviction that ours is a pivotal period of renewal, in which the collective endeavour of academics can amount to an act of intellectual resistance, working to prevent any regressive development that might return us to neoliberal domination. The authors discuss key issues, such as questions of accumulation and expropriation; discipline and freedom; and the powerful new concepts of activation and acceleration. Their politically committed sociology, which takes the side of the losers in the current crisis, places society's future well-being at the centre of their research. Their collective approach to this project is a conscious effort to avoid co-optation in the institutional practices of the academy. These three differing but complementary perspectives serve as an insightful introduction to the contemporary themes of radical sociology in capitalism's post-crisis phase.