The ''New Left Review'' is a British bimonthly journal covering world politics, economy, and culture, which was established in 1960.

History

Background

As part of the British "

New Left The New Left was a broad political movement mainly in the 1960s and 1970s consisting of activists in the Western world who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as civil and political rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights ...

" a number of new journals emerged to carry commentary on matters of

Marxist theory Marxist philosophy or Marxist theory are works in philosophy that are strongly influenced by Karl Marx's materialist approach to theory, or works written by Marxists. Marxist philosophy may be broadly divided into Western Marxism, which drew fro ...

. One of these was ''The Reasoner,'' a magazine established by historians

E. P. Thompson Edward Palmer Thompson (3 February 1924 – 28 August 1993) was an English historian, writer, socialist and peace campaigner. He is best known today for his historical work on the radical movements in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, in ...

and John Saville in July 1956. A total of three quarterly issues was produced. This publication was expanded and further developed from 1957 to 1959 as '' The New Reasoner,'' with an additional ten issues being produced. Another radical journal of the period was ''Universities and Left Review'', a publication established in 1957 with less of a sense of allegiance to the British communist tradition. This publication was more youth-oriented and

pacifist Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campai ...

in orientation, expressing opposition to the militaristic rhetoric of the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...

, voicing strong opposition to the 1956

Suez War The Suez Crisis, or the Second Arab–Israeli war, also called the Tripartite Aggression ( ar, العدوان الثلاثي, Al-ʿUdwān aṯ-Ṯulāṯiyy) in the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel,Also known as the Suez War or 1956 Wa ...

, and support for the emerging

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is an organisation that advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United Kingdom, international nuclear disarmament and tighter international arms regulation through agreements such as the Nuc ...

Establishment

''New Left Review'' was established in January 1960 when ''The New Reasoner'' and ''Universities and Left Review'' merged their boards. The first

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...

of the merged publication was Stuart Hall. The early publication's style, featuring illustrations on the cover and in the interior layout, was more irreverent and free-flowing than later issues of the publication, which tended to be of a more somber, academic bent. Hall was succeeded as editor in 1962 by

Perry Anderson Francis Rory Peregrine "Perry" Anderson (born 11 September 1938) is a British intellectual, historian and essayist. His work ranges across historical sociology, intellectual history, and cultural analysis. What unites Anderson's work is a preoc ...

. In 1993, nineteen of the members of the editorial committee resigned, citing a loss of control over content by the Editorial Board/Committee in favour of a Shareholders' Trust, which they argued was undemocratic. The Trust cited financial sustainability of the journal as an issue. It comprised

, his brother

Benedict Anderson Benedict Richard O'Gorman Anderson (August 26, 1936 – December 13, 2015) was an Anglo-Irish political scientist and historian who lived and taught in the United States. Anderson is best known for his 1983 book '' Imagined Communities'', which e ...

, and Ronald Fraser. The Journal was again relaunched in 2000, and Perry Anderson returned as editor until 2003.

Since 2008

''New Left Review'' has followed the economic crisis as well as its global political repercussions. An essay by Wolfgang Streeck (issue 71) was called "the most powerful description of what has gone wrong in western societies" by the ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...

''s contributor Christopher Caldwell. Its contributors include

Vivek Chibber Vivek Aslam Chibber (born 1965) is an American academic, social theorist, editor, and professor of sociology at New York University, who has published widely on development, social theory, and politics. Chibber is the author of three books, ''Th ...

, Tariq Ali, Robin Blackburn and others.

Abstracting and indexing

In 2003, the magazine ranked 12th by

impact factor The impact factor (IF) or journal impact factor (JIF) of an academic journal is a scientometric index calculated by Clarivate that reflects the yearly mean number of citations of articles published in the last two years in a given journal, as ...

on a list of the top 20 political science journals in the world. By 2018, however, the ''

Journal Citation Reports ''Journal Citation Reports'' (''JCR'') is an annual publicationby Clarivate Analytics (previously the intellectual property of Thomson Reuters). It has been integrated with the Web of Science and is accessed from the Web of Science-Core Colle ...

'' ranked ''New Left Review''s impact factor at 1.967, ranking it 51st out of 176 journals in the category "Political Science". In 2021 the alternative index,

Scopus Scopus is Elsevier's abstract and citation database launched in 2004. Scopus covers nearly 36,377 titles (22,794 active titles and 13,583 inactive titles) from approximately 11,678 publishers, of which 34,346 are peer-reviewed journals in top- ...

, placed the journal as 99/556 Political Science and International Relations journals with a citation score of 2.4.

References

External links

*
''The New Reasoner'' Archive of Contents
Amiel Melburn Trust Internet Archive

Amiel Melburn Trust Internet Archive
Text of the March 1993 resignation of the majority of the editorial committee.
{{DEFAULTSORT:New Left Review Bi-monthly magazines published in the United Kingdom Magazines published in London 1960 establishments in the United Kingdom Magazines established in 1960 Political magazines published in the United Kingdom Socialist magazines New Left