Does Marxism possess an ethical impulse? Is there a moral foundation that underpins the Marxist critique of capitalism and the vision for social progress? The essays collected in Constructing Marxist Ethics: Critique, Normativity, Praxis argue that there is such an ethical grounding for Marxist theory. The essays, each from different vantage points, construct what a Marxian ethics should look like: what kind of values should be at the heart of the Marxian enterprise. Contributors are: Dan Albanese, Paul Blackledge, Bob Cannon, Tony Burns, Ian Fraser, Ruth Groff, Wadood Hamad, Christoph Henning, Peter Hudis, Lauren Langman, George E. McCarthy, Sean Sayers, Michael J. Thompson, and Lawrence Wilde.

Roger Garaudy was for many years at the centre of the French Communist Party but was eventually expelled for his liberal views. In the Seventies, he strove to bring Marxism and Christianity together, to include all humanity in a project to set all people free. What emerges from Garaudy’s project is a very modern Marxism, with its emphasis on the individual, its ecological politics, and in its insistence on religion as central to human emancipation. Although Garaudy himself became frustrated by the failure of Marxism and converted to Islam, eventually resulting in his work being discredited in the West, it is certainly possible that Garaudy’s project represents a good, perhaps even the best, starting point for Marxism in today’s world.

In Marx Matters noted scholars explore the way a Marxian political economy addresses contemporary social problems, demonstrating the relevance of Marx today and outlining how his work can frame progressive programs for social change.

Critical theory was one of the most vigorous and insightful intellectual traditions of the twentieth-century. At its core was a critique of culture and consciousness that stemmed from an insight into the nature of modern rationality, economic life, and social organization. Yet, Michael Thompson argues in this highly original book that the tradition has been domesticated - it no longer offers a philosophically convincing nor politically viable form of social critique. Thompson demonstrates that the field has surrendered its concerns with domination, alienation, and the pathologies of capitalist modernity and shifted its focus toward neo-Idealist themes. This new critical theory has turned its back on the insights of the classical critical theorists. Thompson traces how this shift occurred and how we can reclaim a genuinely critical critical theory. He goes on to defend the different aspects of critical theory that can be used to reformulate a social critique, one that must be brought into dialogue with contemporary political, social and moral philosophy and theory in a way that protects the lasting and crucial legacy of critical theory as a political project.

Writing Democracy: The Political Turn in and Beyond the Trump Era calls on the field of writing studies to take up a necessary agenda of social and economic change in its classrooms, its scholarship, and its communities to challenge the rise of neoliberalism and right-wing nationalism. Grown out of an extended national dialogue among public intellectuals, academic scholars, and writing teachers, collectively known as the Writing Democracy project, the book creates a strategic roadmap for how to reclaim the progressive and political possibilities of our field in response to the "twilight of neoliberalism" (Cox and Nilsen), ascendant right-wing nationalism at home (Trump) and abroad (Le Pen, Golden Dawn, UKIP), and hopeful radical uprisings (Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, Arab Spring). As such, the book tracks the emergence of a renewed left wing in rhetoric and activism post-2008, suggests how our work as teachers, scholars, and administrators can bring this new progressive framework into our institutions, and then moves outward to our role in activist campaigns that are reshaping public debate. Part history, part theory, this book will be an essential read for faculty, graduate students, and advanced undergraduate students in composition and rhetoric and related fields focused on progressive pedagogy, university-community partnerships, and politics.

This book reconstructs the concept of the individual in Marx as the key to a fresh interpretation of Marxian philosophy. Marx moved from an examination of the contingency and indeterminacy of individual consciousness in his early years to a critique of the atomistic individual and materialised social relations in his later years. His thought proposes that ‘real individuals’ are the basis for an understanding of human society that promotes the emancipation of humankind. Marx’s philosophy has often been misunderstood as lacking a concept of the individual. In China, this misunderstanding not only relates to cultural and linguistic particularities (the word ‘individual’ is seldom used in Chinese), but also relates to a misleading view of socialism and communism. This book helps remedy this misunderstanding and draws important comparisons and contrasts between Marx’s concept of the individual with that of liberalism, and between Western and Eastern Marxism.

The 1848 Revolutions in Europe that marked a turning-point in the history of political thought are examined here in a pan-European perspective.

This introductory textbook on international relations theory brings together a selection of leading experts to offer an unparalleled insight into the main paradigms and latest developments in the discipline. Presenting a full range of theories, from realism and liberalism to institutionalism and green theory, the sixth edition of this book has been extensively revised to offer a more global introduction to international relations. It showcases insights from across the world, and employs a historical and sociological perspective throughout to demonstrate how any understanding of IR is time and place contingent. New to this edition are two new chapters on postcolonialism and institutionalism, as well as boxed cases which apply theory to contemporary empirical examples including gendered policy in the UN, the phenomenon of 'fake news', issues on migration, and the crisis of the Amazon's forest fires. Assuming no prior knowledge of international relations theory, this text remains the definitive companion for all students of international relations and anyone with an interest in the latest scholarship of this fascinating field.

Revisiting Marx’s Critique of Liberalism offers a theoretical reconstruction of Karl Marx’s new materialist understanding of justice, legality, and rights through the vantage point of his widely invoked but generally misunderstood critique of liberalism. The book begins by reconstructing Marx’s conception of justice and rights through close textual interpretation and extrapolation. The central thesis of the book is, firstly, that Marx regards justice as an essential feature of any society, including the emancipated society of the future; and secondly, that standards of justice and right undergo transformation throughout history. The book then tracks the enduring legacy of Marx’s critique of liberal justice by examining how leading contemporary political theorists such as John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas, Axel Honneth, and Nancy Fraser have responded to Marx’s critique of liberalism in the face of global financial capitalism and the hollowing out of democratically-enacted law. The Marx that emerges from this book is therefore a thoroughly modern thinker whose insights shed valuable light on some of the most pressing challenges confronting liberal democracies today.

Based on the ethical thinking of the pre-Qin Dynasty, this book discusses the formation and development of traditional Chinese ethics, the refinement of the Confucian ethical normative system and the establishment of its orthodoxy, as well as the deepening and maturation of feudal ethics. The book is simple in style and clear in context. It contains not only the essence of traditional Chinese morality but also the achievements of modern civilization. It analyzes the implications of traditional Chinese ethics on the governance and moral construction of modern society and can be used as a reference for governance and revitalization of the country and moral development.