Class War

A survey of the literature of revolution, Mark Steven's history of global class war considers work by writers from Byron to Assata Shakur. It feels more crucial than ever to study the work of writers who practiced solidarity, and this book promises to be a vital contribution to the revolutionary canon. -- Most Anticipated Books of 2023 * Lit Hub *
Class war is everywhere and in every era. And yet it is not in all places and times the same; it is the stuff of history, and history is what changes. In any regard it is war, and there will be no chance of winning if we do not reckon carefully with its transformations into the present and along the branching paths of the future. It is this movement, a real movement, that Mark Steven sets out to capture, making use of literature's necessary capacity for figuring both the broadest and most delicate social formations in motion. Here he offers a crystallography of veiled relations; there he summons the most explicit jeremiads. Louverture to LeGuin, this book is a wonder in its reach and attention, breathing vitality into core concepts while outmaneuvering the staid orthodoxies hobbling all too much class discourse in the 21st century. Like all the best history: a way forward. -- Joshua Clover, author of Riot. Strike. Riot
Beautifully written and conceived, Class War is a history as absorbing as any nineteenth-century novel. Part literary criticism, part political theory, part polemic, it is also an act of recovery; Steven has written a necessary book. -- Anahid Nersessian, author of Keats's Odes: A Lover’s Discourse
Written with verve and ranging across diverse historical settings, Class War traverses industrial battles, guerrilla insurgencies, and anticolonial resistance, as well as large-scale combat operations waged against capitalism's regimes and its interstate system. An exceptional and impressive work of history. -- Able Greenspan * Midwest Book Review *
Literature and politics go hand in hand in this survey of revolutionary literature from the Haitian Revolution to Black Lives Matter, including the writing of Che Guevara, Frantz Fanon and Assata Shakur. * The New York Times Book Review *
University lecturer Steven states boldly in the introduction that 'this book is intended as a guide to class war.' He then paints a wide canvas, writing about revolutions in Haiti, Cuba, Russia, and elsewhere, spanning centuries to prepare us for a class war that, he argues, is already happening. -- Leland Cheuk, The best new books for summer 2023 * The Boston Globe *