Military Marxism - by Adam Mayer (Hardcover)

About the Book

This book analyzes African Marxist theory to show how this school of thought has developed and impacted Sub-Saharan Africa from the Cold War to the present.

Book Synopsis

Adam Mayer's Military Marxism: Africa's Contribution to Revolutionary Theory, 1957-2023 explores African Marxist theory and the intellectual merits of Afro-Maxist schools of thought to show how they have developed and impacted sub-Saharan Africa from the Cold War to the present. He also discusses the efficacy of the movements influenced by Marxism and how they are contested today. Through in-depth research, Mayer answers the following questions: Who were the African Marxist intellectuals? What happened to these intellectuals in the 1990s in NGO-administered, deindustrialized Africa? How are these theories inspiring popular rebellions and radical anti-Western military coups today? This book explores how Military Marxism, through its own rich and variegated African theory, has continued to inform and guide the practice of various political movements today.

Review Quotes

Adam Mayer's Military Marxism: Africa's Contribution to Revolutionary Theory, 1957-2023 is a tremendously important book that serves to highlight the theoretical and practical achievements of Marxist intellectuals and Marxist states on the African continent. Mayer successfully shows that the prevalent contempt towards the achievements of radical postcolonial African states is both epistemically unwarranted and politically dangerous.

This book does as much as establishing, or attempting to establish, a new paradigm around African Marxism, and claims that its thinkers are theoretically sound, sophisticated public intellectuals who knew their societies intimately. I suspect that this book will become a standard go-to reference work on African Marxism, and also African state socialist systems, and especially the thinkers behind them. Certainly it is a great addition to any library worth its salt on African history!
Journal of Central and Eastern European African Studies

This is essential reading for anyone committed to understanding-and transforming-our global political order. In essence, this work transcends meticulous scholarship-it is both a definitive analysis of African revolutionary thought and an indispensable handbook for internationalists. Mayer does not simply document these traditions; he arms global movements with intellectual artillery.
International Journal of African Historical Studies

About the Author

Adam Mayer is assistant professor of international studies at the American University of Iraq-Baghdad and at Széchenyi István University in Hungary.