#StayHome with Verso Reports

In the wake of COVID-19, solidarity is practiced not by taking to the streets, but by staying indoors (where possible). We now have the rare opportunity to read more than we are usually able to. With that in mind, we're trying to bring you as much of our reading (as possible!) for free.

Make sure you download our 5 free ebooks looking at what might be possible in the fractured wake of this global crisis, here.

We also have our FREE eBook series: Verso Reports.

The series responds to various political and cultural moments with interventions that ask the essential questions of the current moment. See below for new economic ideas that will shape the direction of the left in the years to come; the contemporary struggle for housing; the fight for working-class power; questions around how we discuss and experience sex and sexual violence in the wake of the #MeToo era; and a look behind the claims of antisemitism against Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party.

Finally, we have 80% off all our ebooks, and 40% off all our print books. See here for more details.

From Labour’s “ownership agenda”, moving beyond neoliberalism’s fixation on private ownership towards collective ownership of society’s productive assets, and the position of unions in society, to plans to reduce the time we all spend at work, and new ecological imperatives for the entire economy, The New Economy Starter Pack is a vital resource for those who want a wide-ranging introduction to the new and transformative economic agenda of the left.

This collection of essays helps us to understand the contemporary struggle in housing; how to protest gentrification; the privatisation of public spaces; the demand for places of self expression, and the security of home.

Austerity has continued to create new levels of poverty not seen this side of the second World War. Politicians have created scapegoats – immigrants, experts, the disabled – on whom to blame the current malaise in order to distract from the horrors of their incompetent malevolence. Children are too hungry to concentrate in the classroom, and there are not enough teachers. Nurses are overworked in out-of-date hospitals. The planet is burning and the police spend their time illegally dragging Extinction Rebellion protesters to the cells.

This urgent Verso Report, edited by Jamie Stern-Weiner, brings together the most rigorous and penetrating analytical writings on the ‘Labour antisemitism’ affair. They provide between them a sober examination of the strange events that have warped British politics since 2015 and an informed basis for Labour as well as kindred movements to draw lessons for the future.

With the far-right on the rise globally, a viable left-wing alternative movement is urgently needed. In the United States, a growing socialist movement seeks to confront and defeat Trump's toxic mixture of racism, misogyny, isolationism, and empty “anti-establishment” rhetoric, as well as the bi-partisan status quo that gave Trump room to rise. This reborn socialist movement faces many questions about strategy—especially in its approach to electoral politics. 

In this collection of new and previously published writings, leading activists, feminists, scholars, and writers describe the shape of the problem, chart the forms refusal has taken, and outline possible solutions. Importantly, they also describe the longer histories of organizing against sexual violence that the #MeToo moment obscures—among working women, women of color, undocumented women, imprisoned women, poor women, among those who don’t conform to traditional gender roles—and discern from these practices a freedom that is more than notional, but embodied and uncompromising.

The Anti-Inauguration presents an initial discussion of what resistance should look like in the age of Trump—and what kind of future we should be fighting for. Featuring contributions from Naomi Klein, Jeremy Scahill, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Anand Gopal, and Owen Jones.

‘Let’s Take Back Control’ was the slogan that won the UK’s EU Referendum. But what did those words mean to campaigners and voters? Control of what was being wrested from whom and why? And in whose interest was this done?

Corbyn and the Future of Labour looks back on an extraordinary year – in which the Labour Party and its membership changed almost beyond recognition – and offers a variety of prescriptions for what needs to be done. 

The New Economy Starter Pack

Edited by Autonomy

Neoliberalism is dying, but its replacement is not yet born. The direction of politics over the coming years is not certain, and the left will have to win not only the political fight, but also the...

The Right to the City

Edited by Verso Books UK

In 1968, the French Marxist philosopher Henri Lefebvre wrote “Le Droit a la Ville” (“The Right to the City”), which has become one of the most essential texts in radical geography and urban studies...

General Election 2019

Edited by Verso Books UK

The timing of the election may be sudden, but the preparation for this contest has been a long time coming. Where do we locate the origins of the moment?Austerity has continued to create new levels...

Antisemitism and the Labour Party

We are approaching the 2019 general election in bizarre circumstances. From the climate crisis to homelessness, Brexit to the NHS, the stakes could scarcely be higher. Yet a story about the Labour ...

Socialist Strategy and Electoral Politics

With the far-right on the rise globally, a viable left-wing alternative movement is urgently needed. In the United States, a growing socialist movement seeks to confront and defeat Trump's toxic mi...

Where Freedom Starts: Sex Power Violence #MeToo

Edited by Verso Books US

The powerful wave of rage fueling #MeToo has finally refocused public attention on sexual harassment and sexual violence and starkly posed questions of power, of feminism, and of politics. How do w...

The Brexit Crisis

Edited by Verso Books UK

‘Let’s Take Back Control’ was the slogan that won the UK’s EU Referendum. But what did those words mean to campaigners and voters? Control of what was being wrested from whom and why? And in whose ...

Corbyn and the Future of Labour

by Verso Books UK