Sasha Lilley

Sasha Lilley is a writer and radio broadcaster. She’s the co-founder and host of the critically acclaimed program of radical ideas, Against the Grain. While program director of KPFA Radio, the flagship station of the Pacifica Network, she headed up such award-winning national broadcasts as “Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan.” Sasha is the series editor of PM Press’ political economy imprint, Spectre, and is the author of Capital and Its Discontents, which Publishers Weekly calls a “cool-headed but urgent volume—timely but sophisticated and wide-ranging enough to remain a longtime reference.” Her co-authored book Catastrophism: The Apocalyptic Politics of Collapse and Rebirth  was published by PM Press.

Listen to Sasha Lilley speak on the two versions of left-wing catastrophism and why we should steer clear of both. Listen to it her talk broadcast on KPFA’s Against the Grain HERE.

• Book events
• Reviews
• More from Sasha

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Praise

“Catastrophism comes at the right moment: 2012, the year of The End proclaimed across the political spectrum from deep ecologists to the Mayan Calendarists. Instead of concentrating on the merits of the claims of the various apocalypticians, Jim Davis, Sasha Lilley, David McNally, and Eddie Yuen examine the political function of these claims and find them to be deeply reactionary. This is a controversial book that challenges many of the unexamined assumptions on the left (as well as on the right). It is a warning not to abandon everyday anti-capitalist politics for a politics of absolute fear that inevitably leads to inaction.”
—Silvia Federici, author of Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle

“Bravo! This is the book that has been sorely needed for so long to reveal the dead-end that a politics founded on catastrophic predictions must lead to in terms of either preventing them or actually changing the world.  Essential reading for all those on the left who are concerned with the question of strategy today.”
–Leo Panitch, coauthor of The Making of Global Capitalism

“I cannot overstate how critically important this volume is. Catastrophism captures a problem that few have seriously grappled with. Anyone who wishes, as I do, for a new kind of (occupied) politics will have to face this formidable array of theoretically-inspired reflections on the politics of apocalypse.”
—Andrej Grubacic, co-author of Wobblies and Zapatistas: Conversations on Anarchism, Marxism and Radical History

“In an age when even Mayan prophecies of the end of the long cycle are turned into prophecies of doom and destruction, this book offers a reasoned and lucid alternative understanding. Definitive and momentous, this book should be mandatory reading for everyone who wishes to comprehend the world we live in and change it for the better.”
—George Katsiaficas, author of Asia’s Unknown Uprisings

“This important book aims to end the politics of The End. The authors of Catastrophism claim that apocalyptic politics, though promising to motivate revolutionary transformation, all too often leads to a fear-induced paralysis and cynicism. This book provides a badly needed boost to our political immunity systems against the apocalyptic claims bombarding us in this purported terminal year for our planet.”
—George Caffentzis author of In Letters of Blood and Fire

“This groundbreaking book examines a deep current—on both the left and right—of apocalyptical thought and action. The authors explore the origins, uses, and consequences of the idea that collapse might usher in a better world. Catastrophism is a crucial guide to understanding our tumultuous times, while steering us away from the pitfalls of the past.”
—Barbara Epstein, author of Political Protest and Cultural Revolution: Nonviolent Direct Action in the 1970s and 1980s

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Praise

“In this book, McNally confirms – once again – his standing as one of the world’s leading Marxist scholars of capitalism. For a scholarly, in depth analysis of our current crisis that never loses sight of its political implications (for them and for us), expressed in a language that leaves no reader behind, there is simply no better place to go.”
–Bertell Ollman, professor, Department of Politics, NYU, and author of Dance of the Dialectic: Steps in Marx’s Method

 “David McNally’s tremendously timely book is packed with significant theoretical and practical insights, and offers actually-existing examples of what is to be done. Global Slump urgently details how changes in the capitalist space-economy over the past 25 years, especially in the forms that money takes, have expanded wide-scale vulnerabilities for all kinds of people, and how people fight back. In a word, the problem isn’t neoliberalism–it’s capitalism.”
–Ruth Wilson Gilmore, University of Southern California and author of Golden Gulag

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Praise

“Chomsky is a global phenomenon… perhaps the most widely read voice on foreign policy on the planet.”
—New York Times Book Review

“What can I say that will in any way convey the love, respect, and admiration I feel for this unassuming hero who was my teacher and mentor; this radical historian and people-loving ‘troublemaker,’ this man who stood with us and suffered with us? Howard Zinn was the best teacher I ever had, and the funniest.”
–Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple

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Book Events

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Reviews

• Crisitunity: Review of “In and Out of Crisis”
• Noam Chomsky über ‚Klassenkampf’
• Collecting Counter-Narratives
• Capital and Its Discontents: A GRIID Review
• Capital and Its Discontents Reviewed in Socialist Studies
• Capital and Its Discontents: A City Books Review
• Capital and Its Discontents: A Review
• Capital and Its Discontents: A Marx & Philosophy Review
• Catastrophism: A Review
• Catastrophism in EcoEquity
• Catastrophism in Socialist Resistance
• Catastrophism: A Publishers Weekly Review
• Crises Can Be Openings
• Catastrophism: A Review
• Catastrophism: A Review in Socialist Studies
• Dylan, Modest Mouse and the End of the World
• Hoping for the Worst
• The Bankruptcy of Doom and Gloom: Catastrophism in The Brooklyn Rail
• The Left’s Catastrophic Logic
• Catastrophism in Science & Society
• Catastrophism in Socialist Resistance
• Catastrophism in the San Francisco Book Review
• Catastrophism in the Socialist Review
• Catastrophism: A Climate Justice Activist’s Perspective
• Catastrophism: A Review on Left Eye On Books
• Catastrophism — The Apocalyptic Politics of Collapse and Rebirth: A Review
• Catastrophism — Left, Right, and Center

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Interviews

• Privatized Utopia: Raymond Craib in conversation with Sasha Lilley
• Raymond Craib on Against the Grain
• The Boy Who Shot a Nazi
• The Kurdish Freedom Movement and the Revolution in Rojava: Havin Guneser on ATG
• Book Discussion of No Gods, No Masters, No Peripheries
• Capitalist Crisis, Radical Renewal?—In and Out of Crisis
• scott crow on Against the Grain, October 21st 2013
• Sasha Lilley: What would Karl do? Radicals reflect on the current incarnation of global capital
• What would Karl do? Part 2: Radicals reflect on the current incarnation of global capital
• What would Karl do? Part 3: Radicals reflect on the current incarnation of global capital
• Sasha Lilley interviewed in The People’s Press
• Sasha Lilley Interviewed on Radio EcoShock
• Silvia Federici on How Capitalism Endures on Against the Grain

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Mentions

Catastrophism excerpt on collapseofindustrialcivilization.com

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Blog

• Raymond Craib on Against the Grain
• Urban Rebellions Then and Now— on Against the Grain
• The Global Economy, Climate Change, and Covid 19— Richard Walker on Against the Grain
• Labor Struggles in a Time of Pandemic— on Against the Grain
• Peter Linebaugh on the Long History of Pandemics— on Against the Grain
• Epidemics, Elites, and Public Health— on Against the Grain
• Noam Chomsky and Sasha Lilley talk about Capital and Its Discontents
• Apocalypse and the Left