LARB: “Whether on factory floors or through economic ebbs and flows, Ignatiev presented class struggle as a sequence of enigmatic forms of conflict, accommodation, and rapprochement. He traced, in microcosm, how the revolutionary processes initiated through the daily activities of ordinary people constituted important “outposts” of a future socialist society in the present. Given the political history and trajectory of capitalist development in the United States, capitulation to the color line and the “poison” bait of white-skin privilege was an overriding possibility. But in the actions of workers in motion, their deeds rather than words, Ignatiev perceived a genuine alternative.”

Geoffrey Aung for Himal Southasian: “In the absence of an effective state response, instead, what has emerged has been a genuine global catastrophe only partially held at bay by the extraordinary actions of ordinary people, including volunteer networks in Wuhan where many volunteers died trying to contain the outbreak. This is essential reading for grappling with our present reality – and the possibility of overcoming it.”

Ferruccio Gambino: “Among the many diaries and memoirs written by blue-collar workers, some of the more impressive ones come from militants and revolutionaries on the left. Noel Ignatiev’s just-published Acceptable Men: Life in the Largest Steel Mill in the World belongs to this category and can captivate readers with its unrelenting attention to social relations unfolding around blast furnaces…

November 9, 2021 —

Today, on the second anniversary of Noel Ignatiev’s passing, Verso blog published a review of Acceptable Men. Jasper Bernes—comrade, poet and literary scholar—writes with great care for Noel, his memoir and the lessons it poses us for today.

Lausan HK: “Public discourse regarding Covid has gotten progressively worse since the essay’s publication, with disinformation campaigns and lab leak theories reaching wide distribution, which has furthered the conspiratorial discourse against China as a civilizational enemy. These dire conditions make Chuang’s book Social Contagion: and other material on microbiological class war in China (Charles H. Kerr 2021), including a revised version of the titular essay, all the more critical.”

For The Baffler, Asad Haider reviews Noel Ignatiev’s memoir Acceptable Men, published by us this summer and available now via AK Press. From “Molecules and Vectors: Noel Ignatiev’s radical commitments”…