Read a comment responding to the April Fools’ post saying that Verso is run by trotskyists (specifically their senior editor Sebastian Budgen). So is all this controversy basically part of some obscure ongoing infighting between trots and MLs within left-wing publishing/academia? Not very familiar with industry politics for niche left-wing publishing companies. Is there a particular ideological tendency in contemporary left-wing publishing? (I assume there’s a perception of trotskyist-aligned theory having some degree of outsized prominence, what with the memes about trots selling newspapers) Is everything published by Verso considered trotskyist or trotskyist-associated, or are they seen as generally non-sectarian?
I think Verso Books has trotskyist origins, but the things they publish are generally non-sectarian. But I guess they retained the Trotskyist anti-stalinism in their editorial decisions
Ah I guess then it makes sense to me why they would publish Losurdo’s other works, but not his book about Stalin specifically. They’re big tent, with exceptions for anything too closely associated with or explicitly positive about big bad Joey Steel.
Read a comment responding to the April Fools’ post saying that Verso is run by trotskyists (specifically their senior editor Sebastian Budgen). So is all this controversy basically part of some obscure ongoing infighting between trots and MLs within left-wing publishing/academia? Not very familiar with industry politics for niche left-wing publishing companies. Is there a particular ideological tendency in contemporary left-wing publishing? (I assume there’s a perception of trotskyist-aligned theory having some degree of outsized prominence, what with the memes about trots selling newspapers) Is everything published by Verso considered trotskyist or trotskyist-associated, or are they seen as generally non-sectarian?
I think Verso Books has trotskyist origins, but the things they publish are generally non-sectarian. But I guess they retained the Trotskyist anti-stalinism in their editorial decisions
Ah I guess then it makes sense to me why they would publish Losurdo’s other works, but not his book about Stalin specifically. They’re big tent, with exceptions for anything too closely associated with or explicitly positive about big bad Joey Steel.