Finger Food

One of the side-effects of Alzheimer's disease is loss of weight, because sufferers forget to feed themselves, so finger food is recommended as a way of helping them keep their weight up. I read that in some medical journal, but I can't remember where now (Oh No! Not that tired old Alzheimer's trope).

This feeble lead-in is a way of explaining why these reviews are so brief: I read these books while I was convalescing, some of them over a month or so ago, and I'm lucky if I even get the title right, let alone recall the subject matter. Nonetheless, completist that I am, this rounds off 2004's reading.

Andre Gorz: A Critical Introduction, by Conrad Lodziak and Jeremy Tatman.

A shortish book that nevertheless gives a fairly comprehensive overview of the development of Gorz’s thought. In spite of the subtitle, this isn’t a particularly critical introduction; in fact, more often than not, the authors are inclined to defend Gorz against his critics.

The Division of Labour: The Labour Process and Class Struggle in Modern Capitalism, edited by Andre Gorz

A series of provocative essays that collectively substantiate the argument that the origins of the division of labour in industry are political and not technical, in spite of Adam Smith et al.’s presumptions to the contrary. According to the various authors herein, control of the production process and the insinuation of the capitalist into it as an indispensable mediator, restriction of technical knowledge, disciplining and fragmentation of the workforce, mystification of class location and thereby reduction in class consciousness and solidarity, and, last but not least, more reliable extraction of surplus value were the determining factors in shaping the labour process, and NOT the ‘objective,’ technically ‘neutral’ dictates of productive efficiency. A superb book that reminded me why I love sociology.

Commies: A Journey Through the Old Left, the New Left, and the Leftover Left, by Ronald Radosh.

A disappointingly general autobiography of disillusionment. Radosh’s journey seems to have a simple plot development: The Communists lied to me about the Rosenbergs, feminists were hostile to my wife, so we’re becoming conservatives instead. Which all (all?) makes one wonder how devoted he was to socialism in the first place, what sort of conception of politics he entertained, and why he didn’t pursue other channels of oppositionalism, as so many anticommunist leftists have done down the years. Paraphrasing Raoul Vaneigem, the moment revolutionaries lie to the people, the revolution is dead. Generations of socialists have understood this. Apparently Radosh didn’t.

On the Edge: Political Cults Right and Left, by Dennis Tourish and Tim Wohlforth.

I've discussed Tourish's views on extremist groups as cults before, but this book offers particularly entertaining chapters on Gerry Healy, Ted Grant, and Lyndon La Rouche. Lovingly described demonstrations of the narcissism of small differences at work, as well as the inevitable paranoia and need for control that arise from democratic centralism.

The Vintage Mencken, by H. L. Mencken, compiled by Alastair Cooke.

Some of the most beautiful writing I’ve encountered in a while, but he does go on a bit. Published in 1955, so much of the material has lost its pithiness, but capable of evoking many a wry smile and moues of admiration at his descriptions of fin de siecle and 1920s Baltimore.

My Disillusionment in Russia, by Emma Goldman.

After the Figes book, reviewed below, not massively enlightening. What pleasure I derived from this book came from the descriptions of Goldman’s accounts of her meetings with Kropotkin and Nestor Makhno. It’s Makhno, in fact, who makes the greatest impression (moreso than Goldman herself) and whose work should be more widely read. See AK press, now linked, at left.