THE ROSA LUXEMBURG READER

Description

Among the major Marxist thinkers of the period of the Russian Revolution, Rosa Luxemburg stands out as one who speaks to our own time. Her legacy grows in relevance as the global character of the capitalist market becomes more apparent and the critique of bureaucratic power more widely accepted within the movement for human liberation.

The Rosa Luxemburg Reader will be the definitive one-volume collection of Luxemburg’s writings in English translation. Unlike previous publications of her work from the early 1970s, this volume includes substantial extracts from her major economic writings—above all, The Accumulation of Capital (1913)—and from her political writings, including Reform or Revolution (1898), the Junius Pamphlet (1916), and The Russian Revolution (1918).

The Reader also includes a number of important texts that have never before been published in English translation, including substantial extracts from her Introduction to Political Economy (1916), and a recently-discovered piece on slavery. With a substantial introduction assessing Luxemburg’s work in the light of recent research, The Rosa Luxemburg Reader will be an indispensable resource for scholarship and an inspiration for a new generation of activists.

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Rosa Luxemburg travels into the twenty-first century like a great messenger bird, spanning continents, scanning history, to remind us that our present is not new but a continuation of a long human conflict changing only in intensity and scope. Her fiery critical intellect and ardent spirit are as vital for this time as in her own. With meticulous care, including valuable endnotes, editors Hudis and Anderson project her in the fullness of her being and thought. —Adrienne Rich

Thanks, Rosa. You go on being our source of fresh water in thirsty times. —Eduardo Galeano

Intrepid, incorruptible, passionate and gentle. Imagine as you read between the lines of what she wrote, the expression of her eyes. She loved workers and birds. She danced with a limp. Everything about her fascinates and rings true. One of the immortals. —John Berger

Rosa Luxemburg’s writings continue to be relevant … The Rosa Luxemburg Reader will aptly serve to introduce her perceptive commentaries to a whole new generation of social and political activists. —Paul T. Vogel, The Midwest Book Review

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Peter Hudis is an organizer for the Chicago-based News & Letters collective, and co-editor of The Power of Negativity, a collection of Raya Dunayevskaya’s writings on dialectic. Kevin B. Anderson is professor of political science at Purdue University in Lafayette, Indiana, the author of Lenin, Hegel and Western Marxism, and co-editor of the ongoing Collected Works of Marx and Engels.