Reviews

A Spectre, Haunting by China Miéville

witchfynder_finder's review against another edition

Go to review page

"DNF" isn't really a fair descriptor for "Sat down to read a theory book cover to cover and realized it's meant to be used more as a reference-slash-commentary on specific aspects of the Manifesto."

What's in here is great, don't get me wrong, just not the kind of book you "read." Or at least that I do.

ptolemyxx's review

Go to review page

challenging dark hopeful informative reflective tense slow-paced

4.5

guarinous's review

Go to review page

challenging hopeful informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

5.0

cbourff's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.25

eduardoandgo's review against another edition

Go to review page

Really liked the sections Criticisms of the Manifesto and The Communist Manifesto Today.

lmt01's review

Go to review page

challenging informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

4.0

brandonadaniels's review against another edition

Go to review page

5.0

About the closest thing I have found to taking a college class on the Manifesto. I’m a fan of Mieville’s fiction, and it’s cool seeing this other side of him. He also reads the audiobook, and has a good voice for it.

rrsood's review

Go to review page

challenging slow-paced

3.0

moviekiss5's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging informative slow-paced

3.0

_tourist's review

Go to review page

on the manifesto of the communist party;

the communist manifesto is particular to its time, but general in its ambitions. yet i am dubious that the best response we have to class antagonism is to fall into battle lines and finally subordinate ourselves to a party we are assured ‘represent[s] the interests of the movement as a whole.’ (2.5).
can i countenance a text that practically froths at the overwhelming ‘productive forces’ used by the bourgeoisie to ‘subjugate nature’ being laid in the laps of the ‘communist party’, lowercase or not?

on mieville’s analysis;

‘…these utopians pursue rarefied social experiments - alternative modes of living, for example - of kinds that can never exist more than fleetingly and interstitially in capitalism.’ well let me not be slow about it. i can never exist more than fleetingly and interstitially in any system, capitalist or not. ‘the slow accretion of tiny victories and defeats’ begins with our interpersonal relations; in other words, our lifestyles, our ‘modes of living’.
to my mind, mieville’s analysis and gloss of the manifesto is not enough to bring it into the 21st century. he relies overly on phrases such as ‘but this does not invalidate the manifesto’s position on /x/‘. after the seventh incantation of such a phrase, it really begs the question ‘why not?’. surely we can do better.
the ratio of hate-evangelism to climate analysis was also interesting.