The Melancholy of the Left-Marxism History and Memory

The Melancholy of the Left, which investigates the liberating potential of revolutionary mourning, is a book that calls for bringing the memory of people who have devoted themselves to changing the world for two centuries to today's struggle and should be read again and again to rethink left culture: “To remember means to save; Saving the past means changing the present.”

Left melancholy is not about abandoning the idea of socialism or the hope for a better future, but about rethinking socialism at a time when the memory of socialism has been lost, hidden, erased from memory and must be rescued; It is not to mourn a lost utopia, but to rethink the revolutionary project in an age that stands against revolution.

All that remains of the century of revolutions seems to be a pile of rubble. Just as we cannot figure out how to start rebuilding the world, we no longer know whether it is worth it. But according to Enzo Traverso, revolutionary experience is transmitted from one generation to the next precisely through defeats. Melancholy, which arises from great disappointments and affects an entire generation, is a necessary precursor to both mourning and preparing for a new beginning. The memory of these defeats feeds the history of the revolutionary struggle and the left culture, which emerged in very different forms, from Auguste Blanqui to Gustave Courbet, from Rosa Luxemburg to Walter Benjamin, like an underground current.

Traverso describes not a reading of the past that is caught up in inertia and resignation, but a rebellious melancholy that refuses to see history as a series of "victims". In this new definition, melancholy; It emerges as a powerful and nourishing vein that disperses mourning and mobilizes the past in the present for radical action. The Melancholy of the Left, which investigates the liberating potential of revolutionary mourning, is a book that calls for bringing the memory of people who have devoted themselves to changing the world for two centuries to today's struggle and should be read again and again to rethink left culture: “To remember means to save; Saving the past means changing the present.”

(From the Promotional Bulletin)

Dough Type: 2nd Dough

Number of Printings: 1st Edition

First Print Year: 2018

Number of Pages: 348

Size: 13 x 19.5