Modern History and Revolution

CHINA, JAPAN, THIRD WORLD

Harold Isaacs, The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution  [1938]
      Superb account of the Chinese revolution of 1925-1927 and its betrayal by the Stalinist Comintern.

Lucien Bianco, Origins of the Chinese Revolution, 1915-1949  [1967]
      A good general overview.

Simon Leys, The Chairman’s New Clothes: Mao and the Cultural Revolution  [1971]
      By far the best book about the so-called “Cultural Revolution.”
      Leys has written several other books on China. All are good. Some are translated, some are available only in French.
      [Situationist article on the Chinese Cultural Revolution]

70s (ed.), The Revolution Is Dead, Long Live the Revolution!  [1976]
      A collection of articles about the Cultural Revolution from diverse radical viewpoints, edited by a Hong Kong anarchist group. See A Radical Group in Hong Kong for critiques of some of the articles.

* * *

Jon Livingston et al. (ed.), Imperial Japan: 1800–1945; Postwar Japan  [1973]
      Two-volume documentary history of modern Japan.

Edwin Reischauer, The Japanese Today: Change and Continuity  [1988]
      A general examination of modern Japanese culture and society.

* * *

Most of the books I’ve read on Third World struggles were marred by the Maoist or Guevarist types of Stalinist nationalism that were prevalent until recent years. The following are among the few exceptions.

C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins  [1938]
      A comprehensive history of the only slave rebellion in history that succeeded — that of the Haitian blacks during the French Revolution.
      Many of James’s other early works are also of interest, but in his later years his tendentiousness became increasingly lame as he struggled to maintain the illusion of a “pan-African revolt” and to defend Third World dictators such as Nkrumah.

John Womack, Zapata and the Mexican Revolution  [1968]
      On the peasant anarchist leader and the revolution of 1910-1920.

Louis Fischer (ed.), The Essential Gandhi  [1962]
      Selections from the autobiography and other writings of this important figure, whose ideas and actions ranged from the admirable to the ludicrous.
      If you prefer a briefer overview, see George Woodcock’s Mohandas Gandhi.

Ngo Van, In the Crossfire: Adventures of a Vietnamese Revolutionary [2010]
      Although the Vietnam War is still well known, few people are aware of the decades of struggles against the French colonial regime that preceded it, many of which had no connection with the Stalinists (Ho Chi Minh’s Communist Party). The Stalinists were ultimately victorious, but only after they systematically destroyed all the other oppositional currents. Ngo Van’s book is the story of these other movements and revolts, caught in the crossfire between the French and the Stalinists, told by one of the few survivors.
      Constantly harassed by the French colonial police in Saigon and risking assassination by the Stalinists if he ventured into the countryside, Ngo Van emigrated to France in 1948, where he became a factory worker, a painter and a historical scholar. His later years were largely devoted to researching and writing his monumental two-volume political chronicle: Vietnam 1920-1945: révolution et contre-révolution sous la domination coloniale and Le joueur de flûte et L’Oncle Hô: Vietnam 1945-2005.
      In the Crossfire is a translation of his memoirs of his years in Vietnam, Au pays de la Cloche fêlée, along with excerpts from his reminiscences of his years in France, Au pays d’Héloïse (unfinished when he died in 2005 at the age of 92). I’m proud to be one of the translators.
      [Online excerpts from Ngo Van’s book]
      [Situationist article on the Vietnam and Arab-Israel wars]

Franz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth  [1961]
      Fanon’s political conclusions are dubious, but his work provides some penetrating psychological insights into the rage and violence of Third World struggles against colonialism.
      [Situationist article on Third World struggles]

Ian Clegg, Workers’ Self-Management in Algeria  [1971]
      Examination of workers’ self-management efforts during the period between the liberation from France (1962) and Boumédienne’s coup d’État (1965).
      [Situationist article on Algeria]

 
Section from Gateway to the Vast Realms: Recommended Readings from Literature to Revolution, by Ken Knabb (2004).

No copyright.

[Next Section]

[Previous Section]

[Table of Contents]

HOME   INDEX   SEARCH

Bureau of Public Secrets, PO Box 1044, Berkeley CA 94701, USA
  www.bopsecrets.org   knabb@bopsecrets.org