We have a very full issue. As readers will discover, the articles cover a wide range of topics—reports from recent struggles, critical analyses of historical and contemporary issues, discussions and reviews of important books and, as usual, some letters. We realize that it's a lot to read so we encourage you to start with what you're most interested in.
We would like to remind readers that we welcome comments about all our articles (there's an opportunity to comment at the end of each) as well as inquiries from all about the Insurgent Notes project.
We are pleased that, once again, we are able to include articles on developments in countries outside the United States—in this case, Quebec, South Africa and Brazil. Our contributors have provided deeply informative and highly provocative perspectives on the recent student strike in Quebec, the miners' strike at Marikana and the almost decade-long rule of the Workers' Party in Brazil.
We have two critiques and a book review that focus on what might be considered long-standing topics of dispute and debate—Maoism, Leninism and Trotskyism. We believe that each submission brings something new and important to the topics at hand and is of direct relevance to important debates today.
We include two articles on education—one an overview of the current state of affairs in the United States and the other an account of the recent teachers' strike.
In May of this year, AK Press published Michael Staudenmaier's Truth and Revolution: A History of the Sojourner Truth Organization, 1969–1986. We believe that the book is an important one and that the complex experiences of STO deserve understanding and exploration for their relevance to revolutionary politics today. We invited former members of the group as well as individuals and organizations who have been influenced by the group's theory and practice to contribute to a symposium. There are eleven contributions and a response by the author.
The book review section includes critical assessments of a book on US working-class history over a fifty year period and of a book on last year's events in Madison, Wisconsin.
Our letter writers hail from Madison and Mexico City.
Let us know what you think!