Editing Monthly Review (section)

==History==
===Establishment===
Following the failure of the independent [[1948 United States presidential election|1948 presidential campaign]] of [[Henry A. Wallace]], two former supporters of the Wallace effort met at the farm in [[New Hampshire]] where one of them was living. The two men were literary scholar and [[Christian socialism|Christian socialist]] [[F. O. Matthiessen|F.O. "Matty" Matthiessen]] and [[Marxism|Marxist]] [[economist]] [[Paul Sweezy]], who were former colleagues at [[Harvard University]]. Matthiessen came into an inheritance after his father died in an automobile accident in [[California]] and had no pressing need for the money. Matthiessen made the offer to Sweezy to underwrite "that magazine [Sweezy] and Leo Huberman were always talking about," committing the sum of $5,000 per year for three years. Matthiessen's funds made the launch of ''Monthly Review'' possible, although the amount of the seed money was reduced to $4,000 per year in the second and third years by the executors of Matthiessen's estate following his suicide in 1950.<ref name=phelps3>{{Cite journal|author=C. Phelps|doi=10.14452/MR-051-01-1999-05_1|title=Introduction: A Socialist Magazine in the American Century|journal=Monthly Review|volume = 51|issue=1|pages=1–21|year=1999}}</ref>

Although Matthiessen was the financial angel of the new publication, from the outset the editorial task was handled by Sweezy and his co-thinker, the left wing popular writer [[Leo Huberman]]. The author of an array of books and pamphlets during the 1930s and early 1940s, the [[New York University]]-educated Huberman worked full-time on ''Monthly Review'' from its establishment until his death of a [[heart attack]] in 1968.<ref name=phelps3-4>{{Cite journal | last1 = Phelps | first1 = C. | doi = 10.14452/MR-051-01-1999-05_1 | title = Introduction: A Socialist Magazine in the American Century | journal = Monthly Review | volume = 51 | issue = 1 | pages = 1–21 | year = 1999 }} p. 3-4</ref>

Sweezy and Huberman were complementary figures guiding the publication, with Sweezy's theoretical bent and writing ability put to use for a majority of the editorial content, while Huberman took charge of the business and administrative aspects of the enterprise. Sweezy remained at home in New Hampshire, traveling down to New York City once a month to read [[manuscript]]s, where Huberman conducted the day-to-day operations of the magazine along with his wife, Gerty Huberman, and family friend Sybil Huntington May.<ref name=sweezy1987-1>{{Cite journal | last1 = Savran | first1 = S. | last2 = Tonak | first2 = E. A. | last3 = Sweezy | first3 = P. M. | doi = 10.14452/MR-038-11-1987-04_1 | title = Interview with Paul M. Sweezy | journal = Monthly Review | volume = 38 | issue = 11 | pages = 1 | year = 1987 }} p. 32-33</ref>

Briefly joining Sweezy and Huberman as a third founding editor of ''Monthly Review'' — although not listed as such on the publication's [[Masthead (American publishing)|masthead]] — was German émigré [[Otto Nathan]] (1893–1987). Although his time of editorial association with the magazine was short, Nathan was instrumental in obtaining what would become a seminal essay for the magazine, a lead piece for the debut May 1949 issue by [[physicist]] [[Albert Einstein]] entitled "[[Why Socialism?]]"<ref name=whysocialism>{{Cite journal | last1 = Einstein | first1 = A. | doi = 10.14452/MR-061-01-2009-05_7 | title = Why Socialism? | journal = Monthly Review | volume = 61 | issue = 1| pages = 55–61 | year = 2009 }} HTML version available at the ''Monthly Review'' website: {{cite web|title=Why Socialism?|url=http://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism|access-date=18 January 2014|date=May 1949}}</ref><ref name=AboutMR>[http://monthlyreview.org/about "About ''Monthly Review''"].</ref>

Another key contributor during the first 15 years of ''Monthly Review'' was economist [[Paul A. Baran|Paul Baran]], frequently considered as the third member of an editorial troika including Sweezy and Huberman. A [[tenure]]d professor at [[Stanford University]], Baran was one of a very few self-identified Marxists to teach economics at American universities during the [[Cold War]] period. Baran worked closely with Sweezy on a book regarded as a landmark in Marxist theory entitled ''Monopoly Capital,'' although he died of a heart attack prior to the work's first publication in 1966.<ref name=phelps4-5>{{Cite journal | last1 = Phelps | first1 = C. | doi = 10.14452/MR-051-01-1999-05_1 | title = Introduction: A Socialist Magazine in the American Century | journal = Monthly Review | volume = 51 | issue = 1 | pages = 1–21 | year = 1999 }} p. 4-5.</ref>

''Monthly Review'' launched in 1949 with a circulation of just 450 copies, most of whom were personal acquaintances of either Huberman or Sweezy.<ref name=sweezy1987-2>{{Cite journal | last1 = Savran | first1 = S. | last2 = Tonak | first2 = E. A. | last3 = Sweezy | first3 = P. M. | doi = 10.14452/MR-038-11-1987-04_1 | title = Interview with Paul M. Sweezy | journal = Monthly Review | volume = 38 | issue = 11 | pages = 1 | year = 1987 }} p. 43-44</ref> The magazine's ideology and readership closely paralleled that of the independent socialist weekly newspaper ''[[National Guardian|The National Guardian]]'', established in 1948. Despite a conservative political climate in the United States, the magazine quickly reached a critical mass of subscribers, with its paid circulation rising to 2,500 in 1950 and to 6,000 in 1954.<ref name=phelps7-9>{{Cite journal | last1 = Phelps | first1 = C. | doi = 10.14452/MR-051-01-1999-05_1 | title = Introduction: A Socialist Magazine in the American Century | journal = Monthly Review | volume = 51 | issue = 1 | pages = 1–21 | year = 1999}} p. 7-9.</ref>

===McCarthy period===
During the era of [[McCarthyism]] in the early 1950s, editors Paul Sweezy and Leo Huberman were targeted for "subversive activities". Sweezy's case, tried by [[New Hampshire Attorney General]], reached the [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]] and became a seminal case on [[freedom of speech]] when the Court ruled in his favor.<ref name=NYTimesObit/>

In 1953, the ''Monthly Review'' added veteran radical [[Scott Nearing]] to the magazine's ranks. From that date and for nearly 20 years Nearing authored a column descriptively entitled "World Events". During the Truman and Eisenhower years, many left-wing intellectuals found a space for their work in the magazine, including a number that would gain in stature in the ensuing liberalized decade, such as pacifist activist [[Staughton Lynd]] (1952), historian [[William Appleman Williams]] (1952), and sociologist [[C. Wright Mills]] (1958).<ref name=phelps18>{{Cite journal | last1 = Phelps | first1 = C. | doi = 10.14452/MR-051-01-1999-05_1 | title = Introduction: A Socialist Magazine in the American Century | journal = Monthly Review | volume = 51 | issue = 1 | pages = 1–21 | year = 1999 }} p. 18-19.</ref>

===New Left era and after===
From the middle years of the 1960s, radical political theory saw a resurgence in association with the emergence of a [[New Left]] in Europe and North America. ''Monthly Review'' grew in stature in tandem with this resurgence.<ref name=jbf1990-485>John Bellamy Foster, "Monthly Review," in Mari Jo Buhle, Paul Buhle, and Dan Georgakas (eds.) ''Encyclopedia of the American Left'' New York: Garland Publishing Co., 1990; p. 485.</ref> While remaining an intellectual journal not oriented towards acquiring a mass readership, circulation of the publication nonetheless grew throughout this era, approaching 9,100 in 1970 before peaking at 11,500 in 1977.<ref name=phelps20>{{Cite journal | last1 = Phelps | first1 = C. | doi = 10.14452/MR-051-01-1999-05_1 | title = Introduction: A Socialist Magazine in the American Century | journal = Monthly Review | volume = 51 | issue = 1 | pages = 1–21 | year = 1999 }} p. 20-21.</ref>

While ''Monthly Review'' remained essentially a publication with roots in the so-called "Old Left", it was not unsympathetic to the young radical movement which grew in conjunction with the [[Civil Rights Movement]] and the opposition to [[conscription]] and the [[Vietnam War]]. Among those associated with the 1960s New Left published by the ''Monthly Review'' were [[C. Wright Mills]], [[Herbert Marcuse]], [[Todd Gitlin]], [[Carl Oglesby]], [[David Horowitz]], and [[Noam Chomsky]].<ref name=phelps20 />

The ''Monthly Review'' editorial staff was joined in May 1969 by radical economist [[Harry Magdoff]], replacing Leo Huberman, who had died in 1968. Magdoff, a reader of the publication from its first issue in 1949, bolstered the already well-developed "[[Third-Worldism|Third-Worldist]]" orientation of the publication, based upon revolutionary events in [[Cuba]], China, and [[Vietnam]]. Certain [[Maoism|Maoist]] influence made itself felt in the content of the publication in this period.<ref name=magdoff1999>{{Cite journal | last1 = Phelps | first1 = C. | last2 = Magdoff | first2 = H. | doi = 10.14452/MR-051-01-1999-05_3 | title = Interview with Harry Magdoff | journal = Monthly Review | volume = 51 | issue = 1| pages = 54–73 | year = 1999 }} p. 54, pp. 61-64</ref>

''Monthly Review'' became steadily more critical of the [[Soviet Union]] in the 1960s and 1970s, with editor Paul Sweezy objecting to the [[Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia|Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia]] in 1968 and the suppression of the [[Solidarity (Polish trade union)|Polish trade union "Solidarity"]] through [[Martial law in Poland|martial law]] in 1981.<ref name=phelps24-25>{{Cite journal | last1 = Phelps | first1 = C. | doi = 10.14452/MR-051-01-1999-05_1 | title = Introduction: A Socialist Magazine in the American Century | journal = Monthly Review | volume = 51 | issue = 1 | pages = 1–21 | year = 1999 }} p. 24-25.</ref> In the latter case, Sweezy declared the incident had proved beyond doubt that "the Communist regimes of the Soviet bloc have become the expression and the guardians of a new rigidified hierarchical structure which has nothing in common with the kind of socialist society Marxists have always regarded as the goal of modern working class movements."<ref name=sweezy1983>{{Cite journal | last1 = Sweezy | first1 = P. M. | title = The Suppression of the Polish Workers Movement | doi = 10.14452/MR-034-08-1983-01_3 | journal = Monthly Review | volume = 34 | issue = 8 | pages = 27–30 | year = 1983 }} p. 30</ref>

Despite an apparent decline of the American Left in the 1980s, ''Monthly Review''{{'}}s circulation hovered in the 8,000 range throughout the decade.<ref name=jbf1990-484>John Bellamy Foster, "Monthly Review," in [[Mari Jo Buhle]], [[Paul Buhle]], and [[Dan Georgakas]] (eds.)''Encyclopedia of the American Left.'' New York: Garland Publishing Co., 1990; p. 484.</ref>

Between 1997 and 2000, ''Monthly Review'' was co-edited by [[Ellen Meiksins Wood]], Magdoff and Sweezy.

===Publication today===
Since 2006, [[John Bellamy Foster]] has been the publication's editor. [[Brett Clark (sociologist)|Brett Clark]] is the associate editor, and the magazine also has one assistant editor and an editorial committee.<ref name="archives-editorial">''Monthly Review'' Archives, "[http://archive.monthlyreview.org/index.php/mr/about/editorialTeam Editorial Team]."</ref>

''Monthly Review'' continues to be published as a print magazine with 11 issues per year (one per month with July and August combined into a single, thematic issue). The print magazine primarily publishes original content, including full articles, book reviews, and poetry, with exceptions such as reprises or adaptations of previously published work identified as such. Everything published in the print journal since the launch of the magazine's web site is available for free access, while archives going back to the journal's inauguration in 1949 are available to subscribers. In addition to these articles, the website also hosts [[Monthly Review Press]] and [[MR Online]].