Verso Books

01/10/2026

Houthi strikes on Saudi oil tankers have rekindled international interest in Yemen’s forgotten war. Regional expert Helen Lackner, author of Yemen in Crisis, brings us up to date.

Following over four years of ‘no war, no peace’, full-scale fighting has resumed in Yemen. In early September, the Houthis seized the port town of Mokha and Perim Island in a blitzkrieg advance on the country’s Red Sea coast. They have gained control of the Bab al Mandab or ‘Gate of Tears’...

29/09/2026

Our new edition of Walter Rodney's How Europe Underdeveloped Africa is out now.

"This book is a legendary classic that galvanized freedom fighters around the world."
-- Cornel West

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa is an ambitious masterwork of political economy, detailing the impact of slavery and colonialism on the history of international capitalism. In this classic book, Rodney makes the unflinching case that African maldevelopment is not a natural feature of geography, but...

29/09/2026

Out today! The Blueprint: How Socialism Can Work in the Real World by Bhaskar Sunkara, Ben Burgis and Mike Beggs

"This is a book to 'pry open our imaginations and put the biggest questions of politics back on the table.'"
-- David Harvey

Capitalism isn’t working. But is there a plausible alternative? The Blueprint lays one out: a system where workers control every lever of production, and competitive markets and state planning coexist side by side. Drawing on the history of socialist experiments and the economic debate over planni...

29/09/2026

Out today -- Traumatized by Catherine Liu

"Liu makes a compelling case that turning the traumatically personal political is keeping us from addressing the systemic issues that make life in America so hard and—dare I say it—traumatic."
-- Helaine Olen

https://www.versobooks.com/products/3263-traumatized

29/09/2026

Out now -- John Berger: From Life by Tom Overton

"[Overton's] exuberant biography is thick with detail and lit by wonder. It strains to paint the whole canvas and give us the man in full, warts and all."
--Xan Brook, Guardian

John Berger (1926–2017) served in Britain’s wartime army before attending art school. The young artist became a critic and broadcaster, cutting a swathe through the staid world of post-war Britain, demanding political engagement in all things. In 1972, he came to prominence with Ways of Seeing, ...

21/09/2026

Until tomorrow, our Hundred Flowers series is 40% off when you preorder all three titles.

In 1956, seven years after his victory in China’s Communist Revolution, Mao Zedong extended an invitation to the country’s intelligentsia: “Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred different schools of thought contend.” As criticism of the Chinese Communist Party swelled, the Hundred Flowe...

21/09/2026

Available again in a one-volume edition: The Prophet by Isaac Deutscher

"Surely this must be counted among the greatest biographies in the English language."
--Graham Greene

Few political figures of the twentieth century have aroused such intensities of fierce admiration and reactionary fear as Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky. His extraordinary life and extensive writings have left an indelible mark on the revolutionary consciousness. Yet there was once a danger that...

15/09/2026

Jameson's legendary lectures on German thought, together in one volume for the first time

Out today-- After Year Zero: On Postwar German Thought by Fredric Jameson

In this series of accessible lectures, Fredric Jameson explores German philosophy and critical theory as it de­veloped in the wake of World War Two. Focusing on key thinkers — Horkheimer, Adorno, Heidegger, Habermas, Marcuse, Beuys, Enzensberger, Kluge, and Sloterdijk — Jameson weaves close rea...

11/09/2026

On the Verso Blog: The Smell of Love

An excerpt from Slavoj Žižek's 2002 book Welcome to the Desert of the Real: Five Essays on September 11th and Related Dates.

In spring 2002, in the USA, one often met people proudly wearing a badge with the US and Israeli flags and the inscription ‘United We Stand’. This new role for the Jews within the present global ideologico-political constellation – their privileged link to US-dominated global capitalism – is...

02/09/2026

This week, we've added four new books to the Verso catalogue!

New titles include Saving the Fire ​by Itamar Vieira Junior, Power and the People by Arthur Downing, Ensh*ttification by Cory Doctorow, and The Care Manifesto by The Care Collective.

https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/this-weeks-new-titles