Gregory Elliott

Domenico Losurdo

In this definitive historical investigation, Italian author and philosopher Domenico Losurdo argues that from the outset liberalism, as a philosophical position and ideology, has been bound up with the most illiberal of policies: slavery, colonialism, genocide, racism and snobbery. Narrating an intellectual history running from the eighteenth through to the twentieth centuries, Losurdo examines the thought of preeminent liberal writers such as Locke, Burke, Tocqueville, Constant, Bentham, and SieyÃ¨s, revealing the inner contradictions of an intellectual position that has exercised a formative influence on todayâ€™s politics. Among the dominant strains of liberalism, he discerns the counter-currents of more radical positions, lost in the constitution of the modern world order.

A Counter-history

Liberalism

In this definitive historical investigation, Italian author and philosopher Domenico Losurdo argues that from the outset liberalism, as a philosophical position and ideology, has been bound up with the most illiberal of policies: slavery, colonialism, genocide, racism and snobbery. Narrating an intellectual history running from the eighteenth through to the twentieth centuries, Losurdo examines the thought of preeminent liberal writers such as Locke, Burke, Tocqueville, Constant, Bentham, and Sieyès, revealing the inner contradictions of an intellectual position that has exercised a formative influence on today's politics. Among the dominant strains of liberalism, he discerns the counter-currents of more radical positions, lost in the constitution of the modern world order.

Iskra Books is proud to publish the first authorized English edition of Domenico Losurdo's now-mythic text, Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend-translated for the first time from the original Italian. Operating under the assumption that the prevalent rejection of, or dismissiveness about, Josef Stalin as a historical figure merits closer and critical inspection, Losurdo encourages readers to make up their own mind on Stalin, rather than to uncritically accept received, popular notions. In fact, it is precisely the now-widespread caricatures of Stalin as personified evil-rife in liberal democracies and uncritically accepted by most Western leftists-that Losurdo shows to be more related to contingent ruling class preoccupations than actual evidence. Even pointing out such problems with conventional representations of Stalin brought a shower of accusations of "Stalinism" or "neo-Stalinism" upon Losurdo, who made it clear that the text of Stalin was not a rehabilitation but a contribution to contextualizing and ending the demonization of Stalin, who was even, in 1946, praised by Gandhi. Losurdo's work on the historical representations of Stalin, as well as other works like it, is perhaps more vital today than it ever has been. With the passage of time, we become further removed from the contemporary voices challenging the construction of what has become the hegemonic view of Stalin. Losurdo teaches us, among other things, that historical contextualization and coeval comparisons are crucial to testing one's political philosophy and principles, to deepening our knowledge of socialist history, and, at the same time, a key to dismantling bourgeois ideologies. "Domenico Losurdo's Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend recaptures the distorted personal and political narrative proffered by western historians for over 75 years. This magisterial work convincingly counters the biased distortions of both establishment and left historians through a balanced historiographic and philosophical exegesis of Stalin's complex life and leadership, as well as his contribution to socialism and the defeat of fascism. Losurdo's heretical counter-hegemonic history authentically counters the mythical, demonic figure into a true-to-life biography of the most significant political figure of the 20th century. Fifteen years after its publication in Italian, Henry Hakamäki and Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro's superb translation brings Losurdo's compelling corrective of Stalin to English readers." Immanuel Ness, Author of Southern Insurgency: The Coming of the Global Working Class "In this intrepid and rigorous study, Domenico Losurdo takes on the myth of the monster by shedding much-needed light on the monstrous situation in which Joseph Stalin found himself: that of building the world's first socialist state under conditions of incessant imperialist assault, civil war, subversive plots, fascist invasion, and the risks of nuclear annihilation. Losurdo's dialectical assessment of the commendable as well as the deplorable decisions made by Soviet leadership, given the circumstances, provides the reader with an extraordinary opportunity to learn practical and difficult lessons from concrete history. This book is thus an essential antidote to the terrifying tales whose purpose is to produce fear-induced ignorance, and thus benighted ideological alignment against 'the monster.'" Gabriel Rockhill, Founding Director of the Critical Theory Workshop / Atelier de Théorie Critique, Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University

Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend

Available for the first time in English, this book examines and reinterprets class struggle within Marx and Engels’ thought. As Losurdo argues, class struggle is often misunderstood as exclusively the struggle of the poor against the rich, of the humble against the powerful. It is an interpretation that is dear to populism, one that supposes a binary logic that closes its eyes to complexity and inclines towards the celebration of poverty as a place of moral excellence. This book, however, shows the theory of class struggle is a general theory of social conflict. Each time, the most adverse social conflicts are intertwined in different ways. A historical situation always emerges with specific and unique characteristics that necessitate serious examination, free of schematic and biased analysis. Only if it breaks away from populism can Marxism develop the ability to interpret and change the world.

A Political and Philosophical History

Class Struggle

Um dos maiores pensadores marxistas do século XX, o italiano Domenico Losurdo deixou um contundente legado não só para o pensamento filosófico, mas também para a luta contra o imperialismo e o colonialismo. Essa coletânea, organizada pelo historiador Jones Manoel, traz ao leitor 12 intervenções do renomado estudioso, entre artigos, transcrições de palestras e entrevistas. Tendo como conceitos centrais os temas do imperialismo, do racismo e da dominação colonial, a obra apresenta uma compreensão estratégica da luta de classes internacional durante o século XX e sua continuidade no século XXI. Das ligações teóricas entre o regime nazista e os Estados Unidos até a chamada "indústria da mentira" em operação nos recentes conflitos na Síria e no Iraque, os métodos da dominação colonial são expostos e integrados a uma visão histórica do desenvolvimento do capitalismo sob hegemonia estadunidense. A coletânea propõe um vínculo claro entre capitalismo e colonialismo, e também entre marxismo e luta anticolonial e anti-imperialista, de uma perspectiva histórica e militante. O texto é muito instrutivo sobre a relação entre o surgimento do movimento comunista e o combate à dominação colonial e racial no mundo.

Desafios da revolução no século XXI

Colonialismo e luta anticolonial

A History Beyond the Myth

Non-Violence

"War and Revolution is an original rereading of contemporary history, linking trends of historical revisionism in historiography to an investigation of fundamental philosophical and political categories, such as international civil war, revolution, totalitarianism and genocide. Losurdo begins from the revisionist theses of Ernst Nolte on the Holocaust and of Francois Furet on the French Revolution, and ends with the Anglophone imperial revivalists Paul Johnson and Niall Ferguson. Losurdo captivates the reader with a history of modern revolt that is a tour de force, giving a new perspective on comparisons between the English, American, French and twentieth-century revolutions"--

rethinking the twentieth century

War and revolution

Nascido no coração do Ocidente, o marxismo se disseminou, com a Revolução de Outubro, por todos os cantos do mundo, desenvolvendo-se de maneiras diferentes e contrastantes, de acordo com o contexto histórico, social e econômico. À diferença do oriental, o marxismo ocidental perdeu o vínculo com a revolução anticolonialista mundial – ponto de virada decisivo do século XX – e acabou sofrendo um colapso. Em seu novo livro, Domenico Losurdo conta a parábola do marxismo ocidental: seu nascimento, sua evolução e sua queda. Uma obra polêmica e combativa, que pode ser considerada uma espécie de acerto de contas com o percurso do marxismo ocidental, repassando toda a sua trajetória até suas figuras atuais, como Slavoj Žižek, David Harvey, Alain Badiou, Giorgio Agamben e Antonio Negri, sem deixar de visitar pensadores já clássicos como Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, György Lukács, Herbert Marcuse, Louis Althusser, Ernst Bloch e Jean-Paul Sartre. Losurdo diagnostica a "morte" do marxismo ocidental, retraça sua gênese e coloca questões decisivas: seu renascimento seria possível nos dias atuais? Sob quais condições?

como nasceu, como morreu, como pode renascer

O marxismo ocidental

Author of the acclaimed Liberalism: A Counter-History dissects the revisionist attempts to expunge or criminalize revolutions. War and Revolution identifies and takes to task a reactionary trend among contemporary historians, one that’s grown increasingly apparent in recent years. It’s a revisionist tendency discernible in the work of authors such as Ernst Nolte, who traces the impetus behind the Holocaust to the excesses of the Russian Revolution; or François Furet, who links the Stalinist purges to an “illness” originating with the French Revolution. The intention of these revisionists is to eradicate the revolutionary tradition. Their true motives have little to do with the quest for a greater understanding of the past, but lie in the climate of the present day and the ideological needs of the political classes, as is most clearly seen now in the work of the Anglophone imperial revivalists Paul Johnson and Niall Ferguson. In this vigorous riposte to those who would denigrate the history of emancipatory struggle, Losurdo captivates the reader with a tour de force account of modern revolt, providing a new perspective on the English, American, French and twentieth-century revolutions.

Rethinking the Twentieth Century

War and Revolution

This book embraces two centuries of the history of non-violence, reconstructing the great historical crises that this movement has faced. In this book the historical reconstruction is intertwined with the philosophical and psychological analysis of the moral dilemmas that great historical crises inevitably imply.

Available in English for the first time, this masterwork is widely regarded as the single most important book on Nietzsche.

Intellectual Biography and Critical Balance-Sheet

Nietzsche, the Aristocratic Rebel

Uluslararası Marx-Hegel Diyalektik Düşünce Topluluğu’nun başkanı Prof. Domenico Losurdo, bu kitapta sadece İslami değil, aynı zamanda Yahudi ve Hristiyan köktendinciliğinin tarihsel, sosyolojik ve siyasal kaynaklarını tartışıyor. Böylece indirgemeci ve tek taraflı yorumları ters yüz ediyor: Bir yandan güncel siyasal tartışmalarda birbirinin karşı kutbunda yer aldığı varsayılan farklı köktendincilikleri eleştirel bir gözle ele alarak, sadece farklılıklarına değil, aynı zamanda ortak noktalarına da işaret ediyor. Köktendinciliği İslam ve Doğu toplumlarına zimmetleyen “aydınlanmış Batı uygarlığı” iddiasını tarihsel ve güncel örneklerle eleştiriyor. Bunun yanı sıra, özellikle son on yıllarda köktendinci hareketlerin yükselişine özcü ve kendinden menkul açıklamalar getiren, adeta “kaçınılmazlık” atfeden iddialara karşı, bu olguyu tarihsel ve sosyolojik temelleri üzerine oturtuyor. Köktendinciliğin bir siyasal hareket olarak kapitalist modernleşme, bağımsızlık hareketleri ya da ayrılıkçılık gibi farklı toplumsal/siyasal olgularla ilişkisini tartışıyor.

Köktendincilik Nedir?

una storia politica e filosofica

La lotta di classe

STALIN- Bir Siyah Efsanenin Tarihi ve Eleştirisi, Domenico Losurdo

STALIN- Bir Siyah Efsanenin Tarihi ve Eleştirisi

Eine politische und philosophische Geschichte

Der Klassenkampf oder Die Wiederkehr des Verdrängten?

How democracy became a form of soft authoritarian rule The history of the advent of universal suffrage is a fraught one. As late as the mid-twentieth century, it was still impeded by forms of censitary, racial and sexual discrimination, which proved especially stubborn in countries with the most rooted liberal tradition. Moreover, no sooner had it been achieved than universal suffrage was subject to internal depletion that reduced the exercise of political rights to the acclamation of a leader vested with very wide powers. In and through a complex historical process, Bonapartism has assumed its current 'soft' form, involving orderly competition and succession and resorting to the iron fist only in emergency situations. The electoral system most conducive to this regime seems to be one involving single-member constituencies. Cutting out organized parties with programmes and, courtesy also of the gigantic concentration of the mass media, depriving the subaltern classes of any political expression, it reduces 'democracy' to a contest between competing leaders, who are the interpreters exclusively oflocal realities or interests, over and above which towers the figure of thenation's charismatic leader. The United States represents the primary country-laboratory of the 'soft Bonapartism' that has also emerged in Italy, and which seems set to become the political regime of our time.

Two Centuries of War on Democracy

Democracy or Bonapartism

Johann Gottlieb Fichte

Franco Volpi

Vincenzo Vitiello

Enrica Lisciani-Petrini

Eugenio Mazzarella

Massimo Venturi Ferriolo

Enrico Garulli

Franco Bosio

Carla Amadio

Klaus Düsing

Giorgio Guzzoni

Fascicolo 1. Saggi: F. BOSIO, Heidegger e il tramonto dell’Occidente; G. GUZZONI, Heidegger e la metafisica; V. VITIELLO, Di là dall’evidenza, verso l’ombra (Heidegger interprete di Platone). Discussioni F. VOLPI, Adorno e Heidegger: un dialogo postumo?. Ricerche: E. LISCIANI-PETRINI, Il silenzio delle cose; E. MAZZARELLA, Esistenza storica e virtù della terra. Karl Löwith e Martin Heidegger. Note. Fascicolo 2. Saggi: K. DÜSING, Lineamenti di ontologia e teologia in Aristotele e Hegel; F. BOSIO, Sapere assoluto e metafisica; C. AMADIO, La logica jenese di Hegel e la logica esistenziale di Jaspers. Testi e traduzioni: J.G. FICHTE, La recensione dell’«Enesidemo» (traduzione italiana di E. GARULLI). Discussioni: D. LOSURDO, Hegel: Grande Enciclopedia, Piccola Logica e «Zusätze». Ricerche: M. VENTURI FERRIOLO, La lenza e la moneta. Per un’introduzione ad Aristotele e la crematistica. Recensioni.

Il Pensiero, XXIII, 1-2, 1982

Available in English for the first time, Hegel and the Freedom of Moderns revives discussion of the major political and philosophical tenets underlying contemporary liberalism through a revolutionary interpretation of G. W. F. Hegel’s thought. Domenico Losurdo, one of the world’s leading Hegelians, reveals that the philosopher was fully engaged with the political controversies of his time. In so doing, he shows how the issues addressed by Hegel in the nineteenth century resonate with many of the central political concerns of today, among them questions of community, nation, liberalism, and freedom. Based on an examination of Hegel’s entire corpus—including manuscripts, lecture notes, different versions of texts, and letters—Losurdo locates the philosopher’s works within the historical contexts and political situations in which they were composed. Hegel and the Freedom of Moderns persuasively argues that the tug of war between “conservative” and “liberal” interpretations of Hegel has obscured and distorted the most important aspects of his political thought. Losurdo unravels this misleading dualism and provides an illuminating discussion of the relation between Hegel’s political philosophy and the thinking of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. He also discusses Hegel’s ideas in relation to the pertinent writings of other major figures of modern political philosophy such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Locke, Edmund Burke, John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, Karl Popper, Norberto Bobbio, and Friedrich Hayek.

Domenico Losurdo

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