started rereading prashad’s red star over the third world this past week. is pretty simple and short, but a nice overview of important history.

If you wanna be notified for the upcoming weekly threads, just reply to this comment with ‘yes’ or ‘y’. I will assume you want to be added to a notification list. If you want to be removed from the list, you can reply to this or DM me.

I’m 420 😎 pages into Capital Vol 3 so far. Wondering if my 20-pages a day will be a bit much now that I’m back at work, at least for something this heavy. I’m very motivates though. I want to do write ups for Vol I and III like I did for II. I also want to work my way up to writing about modern money eventually. Any good recommendations for learning more about that?

I also read some Stanislaw Lem stories. The Mask and Terminus. Very good writing.

Finished Nkrumah’s neocolonialism, onto Cheng Enfu’s Five Characteristics of Neoimperialism!

Posted this in the last thread this morning without realising what day it was:

I’m nearing the end of my reread for Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun. I took a months long break before starting Citadel of the Autarch, because it had been a nonstop ride through a lot of reading beforehand. While there are problems with the portrayal of women and Severian generally sucks as a person, I adore the writing and the worldbuilding.

I originally read this series in 2010 or 2011 as a young person and while it had an effect on me, I forgot most of the details. This has been an experience of discovery as much as an experience of rediscovery. And I’ve also been listening to Shelved by Genre’s episodes talking about the books as I’ve finished sections. It’s helped, almost like a leftist book club providing analysis and details I missed.

In middle of Kraken by China Mieville, so good!!!

He’s become one of my favorite authors, enjoying everything I’ve read by him.

Been reading a lot of early christian stuff. I am not religious at all but am fascinated by how religion has evolved.

Also been reading some works on witchcraft and alchemy. Not because I believe in any of it but because it is very interesting.

It’s sort of amazing how we explained natural phenomena when we did not understand it. I’m also a bit amazed by how long these things can be passed down through oral history. I know older people who believe in some of this stuff, things like the zodiac for when you cut animals, and for fishing.

I can’t imagine they know where these ideas come from.

Edit: spelling and wording

I haven’t read a lot of theory this week due to work. I want to read more novels or comic books so I won’t spend all my time on social media.

I’ll try reading Don Quixote and One Piece. There is also a lot of Brazilian literature that I want to explore.

David talbot - The devils chessboard, about allen dulles. It’s written by a kennedy liberal but since it’s about Dulles’s history its unavoidably good.

I’m reading Ravikant Kisna’s “Meet the Savarnas”. It’s infuriating to know that there is such a rampant caste based hierarchical society in India - something which pushes mediocrity not arising out of an accident of historical relations but because it insists on doing so.

My cover image is also extracted from there. I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to understand how caste functions in modern day India in relatively blunt and simple language.

Marx had written about Indian caste system being slowly eradicated with the growth of migration and the Indian railways (as it was developing during his time). Many Indian communists confused their analysis by relegating it to a superstructure and thereby a lower priority for the movement.

But as Ambedkar argues the Hindu Social Order is all invasive in this region - and he asks Indian communists to engage with this seriously. This book is the most accessible supplement to that argument in modern day.