Victor Wallis
Victor Wallis is a professor of Liberal Arts at the Berklee College of Music. His book Red-Green Revolution: The Politics and Technology of Ecosocialism is available, now in a second edition, from Political Animal Press.
He was for twenty years the managing editor of Socialism and Democracy and has been writing on ecological issues since the early 1990s. His writings have appeared in journals such as Monthly Review and New Political Science, and have been translated into thirteen languages.
He is also the author of Democracy Denied: Five Lectures on U.S. Politics (Africa World Press, 2019) and Socialist Practice: Histories and Theories (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).
Articles by Victor Wallis on Political Animal Magazine:
The US Left: A Short Introduction
On the Precipice
Selected articles by Victor Wallis or featuring his work on other sites:
Red-Green Revolution: The Politics and Technology of Ecosocialism
(Political Animal Press, 2018, 2nd. ed. 2021)
Confronting the planetary emergency brought about by accelerated ecological devastation in the last half-century, Wallis argues that sound ecological policy requires a socialist framework based on democratic participation and examines how such a framework can materialize as popular struggles converge under conditions of crisis.
The second edition includes updated references, a new Preface, and an Epilogue in which the author discusses the transformative developments that have occurred since 2018.
Democracy Denied: Five Lectures on U.S. Politics
by Victor Wallis (Introduction by Johanna Fernández & Illustrations by Kevin “Rashid” Johnson)
Africa World Press, 2019
The United States, among advanced countries, has the greatest inequality, the highest poverty rate, the highest portion of its population imprisoned, the highest proportion without adequate healthcare, the most severe obstacles to universal suffrage, and the most extreme official disdain for the threat of ecological disaster. This book, originating as a lecture series, presents a historically grounded perspective on these traits, including chapters on “American exceptionalism,” on U.S. imperialism, on the trajectory of African-descended people in the United States, on efforts to develop a socialist alternative to the dominant institutions, and on the current configuration of U.S. politics. The presentation is concise yet rich in illustrative examples. Basic institutions and processes are introduced in such a way as to be understandable to readers without prior knowledge of the subject matter. The book will be useful for study groups and as a supplement to college texts.
Socialist Practice: Histories and Theories
by Victor Wallis
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2020)
The level of popular discontent—in the United States as elsewhere—has shown a dramatic increase in recent years, but has yet to crystallize into a cohesive anticapitalist political force. Socialist Practice aims to contribute to a popular movement for socialism. It does so by 1) revisiting, under present conditions, longstanding questions of Marxist theory and revolutionary history, and 2) illustrating the range of issues, activities, and forms of expression that can both inform and be informed by a Marxist approach. Essays spanning a range of national experiences address the crying need to generate a society-wide awakening, grounded in purposeful discussion among all those (the vast majority) whose interests are ill-served by continuation of the status quo.