Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use British English Template:Infobox journal The New Left Review is a British bimonthly journal, established in 1960, which analyses international politics, the global economy, social theory, and cultural topics from a leftist perspective.
HistoryEdit
BackgroundEdit
As part of the emerging British "New Left" in the late 1950s, a number of journals were launched to carry commentary on matters of Marxist theory. One of these was The Reasoner, founded by historians E. P. Thompson and John Saville in July 1956.<ref name=Birchall>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Three quarterly issues were produced.<ref name=Birchall /> The publication was expanded and further developed from 1957 to 1959 as The New Reasoner, with an additional ten issues produced.<ref name=Birchall /> The New Reasoner distanced itself from the British Communist Party and USSR in the wake of Nikita Khrushchev's February 1956 "Secret Speech" on the Stalinist cult of personality, and the Soviet repression of the Hungarian Uprising in November 1956.<ref name=Birchall />
Another radical journal of the period was the Universities and Left Review, a publication started in 1957 with less allegiance to the British communist tradition.<ref name=Birchall /> This journal was youth-oriented and pacifist in nature, expressing opposition to the militaristic rhetoric of the Cold War, voicing strong disagreement with the 1956 Suez War, and supporting the burgeoning Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).<ref name=Birchall />
EstablishmentEdit
New Left Review was established in January 1960 when The New Reasoner and Universities and Left Review merged their Boards.<ref name=history>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The first editor-in-chief of the merged publication was Stuart Hall.<ref name=history /> The early New Left Review style, featuring illustrations on the cover and in the interior layout, was more irreverent and free-flowing than the publication's later issues, which tended to be more sombre and academic.<ref name=Birchall /> Hall was succeeded as editor in 1962 by Perry Anderson.<ref name=history />
In 1993, nineteen of the members of the editorial committee resigned, citing a loss of control over content by the Editorial Board/Committee in favour of a Shareholders' Trust, which they argued was undemocratic. The Trust—composed of Perry Anderson, his brother Benedict Anderson, and Ronald Fraser—said that a change was necessary for the financial sustainability of New Left Review.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The journal was relaunched in 2000, and Perry Anderson returned as editor until 2003.<ref name=history />
Since 2008Edit
New Left Review closely followed the financial crisis of 2007–2008 as well as its aftermath and its global political repercussions. A 2011 essay by Wolfgang Streeck, titled "The Crises of Democratic Capitalism",<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> was called "the most powerful description of what has gone wrong in western societies" by the Financial TimesTemplate:'s contributor Christopher Caldwell.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In recent years, writer Benjamin Kunkel has served as a member of the New Left Review editorial committee,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> while Oliver Eagleton is on the editorial staff.<ref name="Eagleton 2024">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Abstracting and indexingEdit
In 2003, New Left Review was ranked 12th by impact factor on a list of the top 20 political science journals in the world.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> By 2018, however, the Journal Citation Reports rated it 51st out of 176 journals in the category "Political Science", with an impact factor of 1.967.<ref name=WoS>Template:Cite book</ref> In 2023, the citation database Scopus placed New Left Review in the 69th percentile, 214th out of 706 "Political Science and International Relations" journals, with a citation score of 2.2.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
ReferencesEdit
Further readingEdit
- Birchall, Ian, "New Left Review: The Search for Theory", International Socialism, Issue 115, 2 July 2007
- Blackledge, Paul (2004). Perry Anderson, Marxism and the New Left, Merlin Press.
- Collini, Stefan. "A Life in Politics: The New Left Review at 50", The Guardian, 13 February 2010.
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- Harding, Jeremy, "On 'NLRTemplate:'", London Review of Books, Vol. 47, No. 3, 20 February 2025.
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- Saval, Nikil. "New Left Review, 1962–Present", n+1, 6 October 2009.
- Thompson, Duncan (2007). Pessimism of the Intellect? A History of New Left Review, Merlin Press.
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External linksEdit
- Template:Official website
- Website of Spanish Issue
- The New Reasoner Archive of Contents, Amiel Melburn Trust Internet Archive
- The Reasoner Archive of Contents, Amiel Melburn Trust Internet Archive
- Universities & Left Review Archive of Contents, Amiel Melburn Trust Internet Archive
- Text of the March 1993 resignation of the majority of the editorial committee.