Publications
Through the years, the IIRE has used different venues to develop and diffuse left-wing ideas. Aside from our courses, an important pillar of our work is our publication program. We have published over 50 issues of our Notebooks for Study and Research, currently in cooperation with left-wing publisher Merlin Press. We have also produced Working Papers: working documents that often form the basis of future publications and serve to stimulate discussion for newer drafts. A third outlet is our website on which we publish audio- and video-recordings of our courses.
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Notebooks voor Studie en Research
De Notebooks voor Studie en Research behandelen eigentijdse thema's van historisch of theoretisch belang voor de arbeidersbeweging en het maatschappelijk verzet tegen onrecht en discriminatie in het algemeen. Zij besteden in het bijzonder aandacht aan de conferenties, lezingen en de vormingsactiviteiten van het Internal Institute for Research and Education (IIRE) georganiseerd in Amsterdam, Manilla en Islamabad. Het IIRE werd in 1982 opgericht door de marxistische economist en politieke activist Ernest Mandel. Meer dan 50 Notebooks verschenen in het Engels. Vanaf 1998 wordt er samengewerkt met uitgevers in Londen. Diverse notebooks verschenen in andere talen. Boeken kunnen worden besteld via deze site, per e-mail () of door te schrijven naar IIRE, Lombokstraat 40, 1094 AL, Amsterdam.
View items...Working papers
The Working Papers of the IIRE are designed to announce works in progress and circulate early drafts and materials, an important stage in preparing them for possible later publication – whether as a Notebook for Study and Research, one or several articles in a magazine, a book, etc. They represent in particular reworked transcripts of oral educational reports.
The circulation of the WPIIRE is deliberately limited and may vary depending on the topic at hand. Their main purpose is to help the author by stimulating comments, suggestions and criticisms. These may concern the content as well as the form, the sources as well as the analysis. We hope the WPIIRE will enhance international exchanges and contribute to a better collectivization of current theoretical, historical and political thinking.
The studies presented in this format generally retain an unfinished character. They are circulated to insure some exchange prior to completion and possible publication. It is therefore requested that they not be quoted or referred to in public without the formal authorization of the author.
All Working Papers are available in PDF.
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The IIRE publishes four new books on women's liberation, permanent revolution, fascism and the history of the Fourth International this November. Four further volumes, on anarchism, revolutionary Europe between 1918 and 1968, the European left today, and on the IIRE's own history will follow in early 2011. All eight books are part of the IIRE's 'Notebooks for Study and Research' series.
The first four books are: "Women's Liberation and the Socialist Revolution", edited by IIRE fellow Penelope Duggan; "October Readings: contributions on the development of the theory of Permanent Revolution", a collection edited by D.R. O'Connor Lysaght, including an article by IIRE founder Ernest Mandel; "Building Unity Against Fascism: Classic Marxist Texts", with essays by Leon Trotsky, Daniel Guerin, Ted Grant, Clara Zetkin and others; and "The Long March of the Trotskyists: Contributions to the history of the Fourth International" by Pierre Frank and Daniel Bensaid.
Cinzia Arruzza, Member of the IIRE Board and Assistant Professor in Philisophy at the New School for Social Research in New York, has written a short overview of the relations between the Marxist and feminist movement in practice and theory from the nineteenth century to the present day. Entitled “Le relazioni pericolose, Matrimoni e divorzi tra marxismo e femminismo” (The dangerous relationships, Marriage and divorces between Marxism and feminism), this book has already been translated into Spanish and Portuguese, German and Turkish translations are underway and an English edition is planned for publication by the IIRE.
The IIRE team has been cleaning out in its book stocks. If have a big stock of some particular book, that we offer at a highly discounted price, up to 90 per cent cheaper than regular price, in order to provide space (and money) for new books.
It is possible to receive our Notebooks for Study and Research, delivered right to your mail box.
You can receive the next three issues of our Notebooks for only 40 euro.
A documentary by Chris Den Hond
“These gentlemen don’t fear ideas that float in the air, that are written on paper, or that appear in printed or spoken form. What they fear is organization – organized action, organized attempts to bring these ideas to fruition.”
The IIRE sells the two-disc DVD for 12 euro (incl VAT) + 5 euro shipping fee.
Buyers in US and Canada, please use the contact information below.
The Porto Alegre Alternative: Direct Democracy in Action
Iain Bruce, editorIIRE/Pluto Press, Notebook for Study and Research no. 35/36 (162 pp., € 19.20, £12.99, $23.50)
Brazilian socialists André Passos Cordeiro, Ubiratan de Souza, Pepe Vargas, Raul Pont and João Machado describe in The Porto Alegre Alternative how Porto Alegre's participatory budget was born, how it works, how it developed in interaction with popular movements and spread with local Workers' Party (PT) victories, and how it has staked out new ground in promising a radically democratic alternative in the interests of the poor to top-down political and economic decision-making. They argue that the 'Porto Alegre' model does offer an alternative to capitalist politics as usual, but that Brazilian President Luis Ignacio da Silva ('Lula') unfortunately does not seem to have learned its lessons. As editor Iain Bruce writes, the participatory budget's linkage of socialism and direct democracy takes up 'an inescapable task for those seeking to restate the case for socialism in the twenty-first century, in an idiom that makes sense to the new generations coming to politics after Seattle and the immense movement against war in Iraq'.
Iain Bruce is a British journalist and filmmaker who has made documentaries for Channel 4 and the BBC. His latest documentary touches on Porto Alegre and its connection with the wider global justice movement.
The Clash of Barbarisms: September 11 and the Making of the New World Disorder
Gilbert AchcarIIRE Notebook for Study and Research no. 33/34 (128 pp., €15.00, £10.00, $15.99)
The US shift towards "unlimited war" precipitated by the events of 11 September 2001 was long in the making. Gilbert Achcar traces the rise of militant, anti-Western Islamic fundamentalism to its roots in US policies aimed at control ling the oil reserves of the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia, the "Muslim Texas". He examines the disintegration of class-ridden societies in the Middle East today and shows how these processes are rooted in the interests and policies of US imperialism. The US war on terrorism is raising this disintegration to new heights of destruction and disorder.
IIRE Fellow Gilbert Achcar lived in Lebanon until moving to France and most recently Berlin, where he is a researcher in social sciences at the Centre Marc Bloch. He is a frequent contributor to Le Monde Diplomatique, editor of The Legacy of Ernest Mandel and author of several books, including the forthcoming Eastern Cauldron.
'Globalization: Neoliberal Challenge, Radical Responses
Robert WentIIRE/Pluto Press, Notebook for Study and Research no. 31/32 (170 pp., € 21.00, £13.99, $21.00)
In this clear and concise overview, Robert Went refutes the myth that globalization is an entirely new phenomenon and an unavoidable process. While recognizing that globalization poses serious strategic challenges to progressive movements, he argues that these challenges are not insurmountable and that there is hope for real change. Viewing globalization in its historic perspective, Went argues that there can be no return to the postwar mode of expansion, but that the current trend must be altered. If it is not, he warns of greater social inequality, levelling down of wages, a deterioration of working conditions, life-threatening ecological disasters and a pervasive dictatorship of the market. To combat this scenario, Went challenges the left to rebuild social movements and offer a credible alternative.
Robert Went is an economist and former IIRE co-director, currently working as a researcher at the Faculty of Economics and Econometrics of the University of Amsterdam and for The Netherlands Court of Audit.
