COUNTERPUNCH, MAY 3, 2019
Newly released by Zero Books, Tony McKenna’s aptly titled “Angels and Demons” is a collection of profiles of some very good and some very bad people in the past and present. It is the kind of book that is hard to find nowadays and a throwback in some ways to Lytton Strachey’s “Eminent Victorians” or Edmund Wilson’s “Axel’s Castle”. Like Strachey and Wilson, he evaluates prominent individuals against their social backdrop and from a decidedly radical perspective. It is a book that has the author’s customary psychological insight and literary grace. As we shall see, it demonstrates a remarkable breadth of knowledge about disparate cultural, political and intellectual strands that is seldom seen today in an age of specialization.
Your natural tendency is to think of human nature when people are categorized as either angels like Jeremy Corbyn or demons like Donald Trump. However, it is instead powerful historical forces that act on individuals and bring out their worst and their best, especially during periods of acute class tensions. In today’s polarized world, it is easy to understand why we end up with either a Corbyn or a Trump. As William Butler Yeats put it, the center cannot hold.
Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist 
Terence, not Seneca, was the author of marx’s favorite maxim.
Comment by uh...clem — May 4, 2019 @ 3:43 am
Terence, the roman playwright, was the author of marx’s favorite maxim.
Comment by uh...clem — May 4, 2019 @ 3:45 am
https://www.amazon.com/Portraits-Political-Personal-Leon-Trotsky/dp/0873485041
Comment by siptuactivist — May 8, 2019 @ 1:35 pm