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Table of Contents
About the Book
From “possibly the most engaged mainstream journalist of our age” (New Statesman) comes a new global history of communism—ranging from Renaissance England to 21st century China and tracing communism’s transformation from a political idea, into a mass movement, and ultimately into totalitarian regimes that covered half the earth.
In Reds, journalist and historian Paul Mason equips a new generation with an understanding of where communism came from and how and why it failed. Charting its ascension and decline, from the first barricades in Paris in the 1840s to the fall of the Berlin Wall, he shows how communism changed from a Utopian critique of early capitalism into a revolutionary movement that inflicted existential defeats on the autocracies of Russia, China, and their satellites. Mason’s story of communism is one of both heroism and horror: of workers and peasant activists fighting against an old regime that exploited them, and of the repression and famines inflicted by the regimes that were eventually installed.
With liberal capitalism appearing to falter, global climate chaos intensifying, and advances by the far right in Western democracies, communist ideas might appear increasingly attractive to people around the world. Timely and erudite, Reds is a warning against the resurgence of an authoritarian left, and a plea for a progressive resistance to capitalism based on universal human values.
In Reds, journalist and historian Paul Mason equips a new generation with an understanding of where communism came from and how and why it failed. Charting its ascension and decline, from the first barricades in Paris in the 1840s to the fall of the Berlin Wall, he shows how communism changed from a Utopian critique of early capitalism into a revolutionary movement that inflicted existential defeats on the autocracies of Russia, China, and their satellites. Mason’s story of communism is one of both heroism and horror: of workers and peasant activists fighting against an old regime that exploited them, and of the repression and famines inflicted by the regimes that were eventually installed.
With liberal capitalism appearing to falter, global climate chaos intensifying, and advances by the far right in Western democracies, communist ideas might appear increasingly attractive to people around the world. Timely and erudite, Reds is a warning against the resurgence of an authoritarian left, and a plea for a progressive resistance to capitalism based on universal human values.
About the Author
Courtesy of the author
Paul Mason is an award-winning journalist and labor movement activist living in London. Previously the economics editor at both BBC Newsnight and Channel 4 News, he is now a columnist at The New World and is adjunct fellow at the Council on Geostrategy. He is the author of seven books, including PostCapitalism, Rare Earth, and How to Stop Fascism.
Product Details
- Publisher: Scribner (October 13, 2026)
- Length: 544 pages
- ISBN13: 9781668057186
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Raves and Reviews
“Reds is a serious reminder of the horror that results when ideas that seem “fair” and “just” are violently mobilised.”—The Telegraph (UK)
"A deeply researched, thought-through, essential history of a protean ideology.”—Kirkus, starred review
"Surprising and provocative...this book is so well-timed. And so valuable."—The Spectator (UK)
"Gripping, exuberant and epic, Paul Mason delivers a fascinating, accessible and unsparing history of the experiment of Communism from Marx in the 19th Century through Stalin, Mao, Brezhnev, Pol Pot and Deng in the 20th century to the 21st century when as contradictions abound, the Communist China of President Xi is a capitalist megapower and Stalinist North Korea is a hereditary nuclear monarchy and, confronting the recent fashion for whitewashing these crimes, answers the big question of how to end inequality and hierarchy in the digital age with this conclusion: “not like this!” Essential reading for these times."—Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar
"Panoramic in its sweep, impressively detailed in its analysis, Reds is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the forces and ideas that have made our modern world. With a dazzling cast of characters from the French and Russian revolutions, through the Comintern, the Cold War and present-day China Paul Mason brings alive both the key players and the historical forces that they set in motion."—Adam LeBor, author of The Last Days of Budapest
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