The present as history. The passing away of Monthly Review's first generation

Abstract

On the occasion of the death of the American political economist Paul M. Sweezy, this article puts forward an assessment of his intellectual and political career as well as that of his main institutional creation, namely, the American monthly journal Monthly Review: An independent socialist magazine. The impact of both on the social sciences of the second half of the 20th century, as well as on the politics of the New Left of this period, is also assessed. The main point is that Sweezy and Monthly Review have forcefully contributed to the renewal of several branches of modern social science (notably, political economy and sociology of development, although their contribution to macrosociology and macrohistory in their contribution both to the knowledge of capitalism as a historical system and of the social structure of the soviet-type societies has also to be mentioned), of marxist thought and of the emerging styles of radical left politics in the West.