New Books In Critical Theory

Part 2 of 3. In the spring of 1942, James P. Cannon, the founder of American Trotskyism, gave a series of lectures in New York on the first decade of the movement. The challenges, the setbacks, the accomplishments and the lessons learned were recounted with Cannon’s trademark style that managed to be accessible while also maintaining the revolutionary militancy he was trying to carry on. The lectures would eventually become a book, The History of American Trotskyism, 1928-38: Report of a Participant. In a short editorial note, Joseph Hansen remarked “Historians of the future, writing the definitive history of American and world Trotskyism, will undoubtedly round out Cannon's history with additional material delved from original sources; but, while there is no pretension to exhaustive research or extensive documentation in this work, future historians utilizing it as source material will find that they must likewise depend heavily upon it as a guidepost.” This little remark has been proven correct by several l