From the Vanguard to the Margins: Workers in Hungary, 1939 to the Present: Selected Essays by Mark Pittaway (Historical Materialism) - Softcover

Pittaway, Mark

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1608464776 ISBN 13: 9781608464777

Publisher: Haymarket Books, 2015

Synopsis

From the Vanguard to the Margins is dedicated to the work of the late British historian, Dr Mark Pittaway (1971-2010), a prominent scholar of post-war and contemporary Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Breaking with orthodox readings on Eastern bloc regimes, which remain wedded to the 'totalitarianism' paradigm of the Cold War era, the essays in this volume shed light on the contradictory historical and social trajectory of 'real socialism' in the region.

Mainstream historiography has presented Stalinist parties as 'omnipotent', effectively stripping workers and society in general of its 'relative autonomy'. Building on an impressive amount of archive material, Pittaway convincingly shows how dynamics of class, gender, skill level, and rural versus urban location, shaped politics in the period.

About this title

About the Author:

Mark Pittaway (1971-2010) was a Senior Lecturer in European Studies at The Open University, London, UK. He published numerous articles, translations and monographs on workers in 'socialist' Eastern Europe, especially Hungary, including Eastern Europe, 1939-2000 and The Workers' State.

Adam Fabry has a PhD from Brunel University. He sits on the editorial board of Debatte: Journal for Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe and on the corresponding editorial board of Historical Materialism: Research in Critical Marxist Theory. He currently writes about the political economy of neoliberalism and the politics of the far-right.

Review:

“Some of the people in Six by Ten were convicted of crimes, but this book convicts the United States of an incomparably greater crime: blighting the lives and searing the souls of untold hundreds of thousands of men, women, and teenagers by a practice that more enlightened countries consider inhuman. You will not find a more riveting indictment anywhere of our reckless use of solitary confinement, nor one told through such a variety of moving, poignant voices.”

—Adam Hochschild, author, King Leopold’s Ghost

“The voices heard in this powerful collection are haunting. As these men and women make inescapably clear, the practice of removing human beings from everything that makes them sane and stable—keeping them for days, months, and years in utter isolation without light, touch, sound, space, and hope—is unimaginably cruel. Six by Ten is a deeply moving and profoundly unsettling wake up call for all citizens. The use of solitary confinement is deeply immoral and we must insist that it be banned in all of our nation’s prisons. Immediately.” 

—Heather Ann Thompson, Pulitzer Prize–winning author, Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy

About this edition

• Publisher: Haymarket Books
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1608464776
• ISBN 13: 9781608464777
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 333
• Editor: Fabry Adam