Christopher Phelps and Robin Vandome, "Marxism and America: New Appraisals" (Manchester UP, 2021)

New Books in Critical Theory

If the United States has been so hostile to Marxism, what accounts for Marxism's recurrent attractiveness to certain Americans? Marxism and America: New Appraisals (Manchester University Press, 2021) sheds new light on that question in essays engaging sexuality, gender, race, nationalism, class, memory, and much more, from the Civil War era through to 21st century cultures of activism. This book is an invaluable resource for historians and theorists of US political struggle.

I was joined for this interview by editors Christopher Phelps and Robin Vandome (both University of Nottingham), and contributors Mara Keire (Oxford University) and Andrew Hartman (Illinois State University).

We discussed the impetus behind the book and its broader scholarly context, before turning to Mara's chapter ("Class, commodity, consumption: theorizing sexual violence during the feminist sex wars of the 1980s") and finally Andrew's chapter ("Rethinking Karl Marx: American liberalism from the New Deal to the Cold War"). We hope you enjoy our conversation as much as we enjoyed recording it!

Catriona Gold is a PhD candidate in Geography at University College London, researching security, subjectivity and mobility in the 20-21st century United States. Her current work concerns the US Passport Office; she has previously published on US Africa Command and the 2013-16 Ebola epidemic. She can be reached by email or on Twitter.

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