John Bellamy Foster

Category: Books

Books

  • Pox Americana

    Pox Americana

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    “Pox Americana: Exposing the American Empire,” co-edited with Robert W. McChesney (Foster listed first) (New York: Monthly Review Press/London: Pluto Press, 2004), 192 pp.

    This volume brings together the work of leading Marxist analysts of imperialism to examine the burning question of our time—the nature and prospects of the U.S. imperial project currently being given shape by war and occupation in the Middle East.

    Notes/Reprints

    • Revised and expanded version of July-August 2003 special issue of Monthly Review with new material. (Contains an article co-authored by Foster and a preface and another article co-authored by Foster).
    • “Editors’ Preface” reprinted in Monthly Review, vol. 56, no. 4 (September 2004), pp. 1-4—under the title “The American Empire: Pax Americana or Pox Americana?”

    Translations

  • Ecological Imperialism

    “Ecological Imperialism: The Curse of Capitalism,” (coauthored with Brett Clark), In Leo Panitch and Colin Leys, ed., The Socialist Register, 2004 (London: Merlin Press, 2004), pp. 230-46.

    Translations:
    • Catalan translation in Corrent Roig, June 6, 2010, http://www.correntroig.org.
    • Spanish translation in El Nuevo Desafío Imperial: Socialist Register 2004 (Clasco, February 2005).
    • Portugese translation in O Novo Desafio Imperial: Socialist Register 2004 (Sao Paolo, Brazil: Clasco, 2006).
  • Imperialism Without Colonies

    Imperialism Without Colonies

    “Introduction” to Harry Magdoff, Imperialism Without Colonies (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2003), pp. 9-19

    In the decades after 1945, as colonial possessions became independent states, it was widely-believed that imperialism as a historical phenomenon was coming to an end. The six essays collected in this volume demonstrate that a new form of imperialism was, in fact, taking shape—an imperialism defined not by colonial rule but by the global capitalist market. From the outset, the dominant power in this imperialism without colonies was the United States.

    Magdoff’s essays explain how this imperialism works, why it generates ever greater inequality, repression, and militarism, and the essential role it plays in the development of U.S. capitalism.

    His concluding essay presciently points out the limits of any attempted reform of the global economy which does not directly challenge the framework of capitalism.

    Written in the 1960s and 70s, Magdoff’s essays constituted a major contribution to Marxist theory and provided a model of rigorous argument in which theory is constantly checked against the economic reality. They provide an indispensable guide to the basic forces at work in the global politics of the twenty-first century.

    • Published also in Monthly Review, vol. 55, no. 1 (May 2003) under the title “Imperial America and War,” pp. 1-10.
    Translations:
    • Chinese translation in Chinese Academic Social Science Press, 2012.
  • Ecology Against Capitalism

    Ecology Against Capitalism

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    “Ecology Against Capitalism,” (New York: Monthly Review Press 2002), 176 pp.

    (Consists of previously published articles/chapters on ecology and capitalism written between 1992 and 2002.)

    Within these debates on the politics of ecology, Foster’s work develops an important and distinctive perspective. Where many of these debates assume a basic divergence of “red” and “green” issues, and are concerned with the exact terms of a trade-off between them, Foster argues that Marxism — properly understood — already provides the framework within which ecological questions are best approached. This perspective is advanced here in accessible and concrete form, taking account of the major positions in contemporary ecological debate.

    Foster’s introduction sets out the unifying themes of these essays to present a consolidated approach to a rapidly-expanding field of debate which is of critical importance in our time.

    Editions:

    • Indian edition (Kharagpur, India: Cornerstone Publications, 2003).
    • Korean edition by Chaekalpi Publishers, 2007 (contains new preface to Korean edition by author).
    • Bangla edition, (Dhaka, Bangladesh: Shrabon Prokoshani, 2008).
    Translations:
    • Portuguese translation forthcoming from Expressao Popular, 2015.
    • German translation, Hamburg: Laika-Verlag, 2013.
    • Chinese translation by Geng Jianxin and Song Xingwu, (Shanghai: Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 2006).
    • Greek translation, Metaixmio Editions.
  • Hungry for Profit

    Hungry for Profit

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    “Hungry for Profit: The Agribusiness Threat to Food Farmers and the Environment,” (co-edited with Fred Magdoff and Fred Buttel (Foster listed second) (NewYork: Monthly Review Press, 2000). Revised and expanded version of July-August 1998 issue of Monthly Review. (Contains two essays co-authored by Foster.)

    The agribusiness/food sector is the second most profitable industry in the United States — following pharmaceuticals — with annual sales over $400 billion. Contributing to its profitability are the breathtaking strides in biotechnology coupled with the growing concentration of ownership and control by food’s largest corporations. Everything, from decisions on which foods are produced, to how they are processed, distributed, and marketed is, remarkably, dictated by a select few giants wielding enormous power. More and more farmers are forced to adopt new technologies and strategies with consequences potentially harmful to the environment, our health, and the quality of our lives. The role played by trade institutions like the World Trade Organization, serves only to make matters worse.

    Through it all, the paradox of capitalist agriculture persists: ever-greater numbers remain hungry and malnourished despite an increase in world food supplies and the perpetuation of food overproduction.

     

    Editions:

    • Japanese edition, (Tokyo, Otsuki Shoten, 2004).

     

  • Marx’s Ecology

    Marx’s Ecology

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    “Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature,” (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000), 310 pp.

    Marx, it is often assumed, cared only about industrial growth and the development of economic forces. John Bellamy Foster examines Marx’s neglected writings on capitalist agriculture and soil ecology, philosophical naturalism, and evolutionary theory. He shows that Marx, known as a powerful critic of capitalist society, was also deeply concerned with the changing human relationship to nature.

    Marx’s Ecology covers many other thinkers, including Epicurus, Charles Darwin, Thomas Malthus, Ludwig Feuerbach, P. J. Proudhon, and William Paley.

    By reconstructing a materialist conception of nature and society, Marx’s Ecology challenges the spiritualism prevalent in the modern Green movement, pointing toward a method that offers more lasting and sustainable solutions to the ecological crisis.

     Awards:
    • Winner of the Best book award granted the Marxist Sociological Section, American Sociological Association, 2000

    Editions:

    • Portuguese language edition, (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2005).
    • Korean language edition (Seoul: In-Gan-Sa-Rang Publishing Company, 2007).
    • Japanese language edition, (Tokyo: Kobushi Forum/Sakai Agency, 2004), translated by Keiko Watanabe.
    • Persian edition, containing a new “Preface to the Persian Language Edition,” (Tehran Digar Publishing House, 2004)—translator Akbar Masoumbeigi.
    • Turkish language edition, (Ankara: EPOS, 2001)–contains new “Preface to the Turkish Edition” by the author.
    • Indian edition, (KharagpurI, India:Cornerstone Books, 2001).
    • Chinese language edition (Beijing: High Education Press, 2006).
    • Finnish language edition, Publishing Company TA, 2001.
    • Spanish language edition, Ediciones de Intervencion Cultural/El Viejo Topo, 2004.
    • Indonesian language edition, translated by Pius Ginting (Jakarta: Wahana Lingkungan Hidup Indonesia, 2013).
    Translations:
    • Russsin-language translation by Yrii Trofimenko in process.
    • German-language translation (Hamburg: Laika Verlag, 2012), translators Alp Kayserilioglu and Max Zirngast.
  • Capitalism in the Information Age

    Capitalism in the Information Age

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    “Capitalism in the Information Age,” (co-edited with Robert McChesney and Ellen Meiksins Wood (Foster listed third) (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1998), 254 pp.
     Expanded version of July-August 1996 issue of Monthly Review. (Contains one essay co-authored by Foster.)

    Not a day goes by that we don’t see a news clip, hear a radio report, or read an article heralding the miraculous new technologies of the information age. The communication revolution associated with these technologies is often heralded as the key to a new age of “globalization.” How is all of this reshaping the labor force, transforming communications, changing the potential for democracy, and altering the course of history itself? Capitalism and the Information Age presents a rigorous examination of some of the most crucial problems and possibilities of these novel technologies. Taken together, the essays reveal how the new information technologies have been grafted onto a global capitalist system characterized by vast and growing inequality, economic stagnation, market saturation, financial instability, urban crisis, social polarization, graded access to information, and economic degradation.

    Editions:

    • Indian edition, (Kharagpur, India: Cornerstone Publications, 1998).
    Translations:
    • Turkish translation, (Ankara: EPOS, 2003).
    • Vietnamese translation, Hanoi, May 2001.

  • The Communist Manifesto and the Environment

    ”The Communist Manifesto and the Environment,” in Leo Panitch and Colin Leys, ed., The Socialist Register, 1998 (London: Merlin Press), pp. 169-89.

    Most of the debate about Marx’s relation to environmental thought has focused on the early philosophical critique of capitalism in his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and on his later economic critique embodied in Capital in the 1860s – since in both of these works he had a great deal to say about human interactions with nature. Nevertheless, the Communist Manifesto has often been invoked as presenting a view that was anti-ecological – some would say the very definition of anti-ecological modernism.

    Reprints:
    • Reprinted in Dave Holmes, Terry Townsend, and John Bellamy Foster, Change the System, Not the Planet (pamphlet), Chippendale, Australia: Resistance Books, 2007, 27-43.
  • In Defense of History

    In Defense of History

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    “In Defense of History: Marxism and the Postmodern Agenda,” co-edited with Ellen Meiksins Wood (Foster listed second) (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1997), 204 pp. Expanded version of July-August 1995 special issue of Monthly Review. (Contains two essays, including an afterword, authored by Foster.)

    Are we now in an age of “postmodernity”? Even as some on the right have proclaimed the “end of history” or the final triumph of capitalism, we are told by some left intellectuals that the “modern” epoch has ended, that the “Enlightenment project” is dead, that all the old verities and ideologies have lost their relevance, that the old principles of rationality no longer apply, and so on. Yet what is striking about the current diagnosis of postmodernity is that it has so much in common with older pronouncements of death, both radical and reactionary versions. What has ended, apparently, is not so much another, different epoch but the same one all over again.

    In response, the best of today’s new intellectuals on the left are returning to historical materialism, to class analysis. This collection reflects that move, pinning postmodernism in its place and time. It exposes the erroneous bases of “pomo” premises, by identifying the real problems to which the current intellectual fashions offer false or no solutions. In doing so, the contributors challenge the limits imposed on action and resistance by those who see liberating “new times” in the contradictions of contemporary capitalism. What is being celebrated in the postmodern agenda, argues Ellen Meiksins Wood, is the prosperity of the consumerist 1960s reflected in a distorting mirror. The instability and economic polarization of the 1990s demand a solid critique of the conditions of capitalism, not endless reexaminations of their “meanings” this is the standard and goal of In Defense of History.

    Editions:

    • Indian edition, (Delhi: Aakar Books, 2006).
    Translations:
    • Chinese translation by Hao Mingwei. (Beijing: Social Science Academic Press, 2009).
    • Portuguese translation published in Rio de Janeiro in 1999.
    • The afterword to this book by Foster, entitled “In Defense of History,” was translated into Farsi and published in the Iranian journal Negah, September 2000.

     

  • The Vulnerable Planet

    The Vulnerable Planet

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    “The Vulnerable Planet: A Short Economic History of the Environment,” (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1994), 160 pp.
    (A volume in the Cornerstone Books series; second edition, 1999.)

    In this clearly written and accessible book, John Bellamy Foster grounds his discussion of the global environmental crisis in the inherently destructive nature of our world economic system. Rejecting both individualistic solutions and policies that tinker at the margins, Foster calls for a fundamental reorganization of production on a social basis so as to make possible a sustainable and ecological economy.

    The Vulnerable Planet has won respect as the best single-volume introduction to the global environmental crisis. This edition includes a new afterword by the author.

    Editions:

    • Bangla language edition (Dhaka: Shahitya Prakash, 2010), with a new preface by the author.
    • Turkish language edition, (Maltepe-Ankara: EPOS Yayinlari, 2002).
    • Japanese edition, (Tokyo: Kobushi Forum/Sakai Agency, 2001), translated by Keiko Watanabe.
    • Telugu language edition (Andhra Padesh, India: Prajasakti), 2001.
    • Korean language edition, (Seoul: Dongzoknara, 1996)–contains new “Preface to the Korean Edition” by author.
    • Low cost edition, (Kharaaqpur, India: Cornerstone Publications, 1995)–for Indian market.
    Translations:
    • Chinese translation by Guo Jianren (Beijing: Commercial Press, 2013).
    • Chinese translation, Beijing University Press.
    • German translation (Hamburg: Laika-Verlag). Chapter 6, entitled “The Vulnerable Planet,” reprinted in Leslie King and Deborah McCarthy, Environmental Sociology: From Analysis to Action. (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005), pp. 3-15.