The Long Sixties: Conversations with a Lifelong Revolutionary brings together a wide-ranging dialogue with militant Marxist and theorist Loren Goldner, tracing his political journey from the upheavals of Berkeley in 1968 through decades of revolutionary critique and international engagement.
First published in Italian in 2018 as Revolution in Our Lifetime: Conversazione con Loren Goldner sul lungo Sessantotto, this new English edition expands accessibility to Goldner’s reflections and adds framing essays that situate the conversations within his lifelong contributions to left communist thought. It features an introduction to the Italian edition by Emiliana Armano and Raffaele Sciortino, an introduction to the English edition by John Garvey, and editorial contributions by David Ranney.
Across four conversations—on the New Left and Berkeley, on global 1968, on Asia and the contradictions of capitalist development, and on the evolution of Marxist theory—Goldner situates his life in the broader context of proletarian movements and the transformations of global capital. His testimony blends personal narrative, militant history, and theoretical provocation, avoiding nostalgia in favor of a rigorous attempt to connect the “long sixties” with the challenges of today’s struggles.
For readers interested in radical history, Marxist theory, and the unfinished legacies of 1968, this volume is both a testament to Loren Goldner’s life and thought and an invitation to rethink what revolutionary politics might mean in the twenty-first century.
About the Editors
Emiliana Armano is an Italian sociologist and independent researcher in critical labor studies, digital platforms, and precarious work. As an independent researcher, she focuses on social inquiry and co-research as a methodological approach. Affiliated as a PhD in sociology at the State University of Milan, her work critically examines the gig economy, algorithmic management, and the social implications of digitalization. Her recent publications include research works exploring the intersection of labor rights, platform capitalism, and worker resistance, particularly in the post-COVID-19 context. In this framework, Armano co-authored, with Marco Briziarelli and Elisabetta Risi, the edited book Digital Platforms and Algorithmic Subjectivities (Westminster Press, 2022). Her interdisciplinary approach bridges sociology, political economy, and technology studies, making her a prominent voice in debates on contemporary work transformations.
Raffaele Sciortino has a PhD in Political Studies and International Relations at the State University of Milan. As an independent researcher, he is known for his research on globalization, the geopolitics of imperialism, and the US-China relationship. Based in Italy, his work delves into international economic policy, globalization theories, and the intersection of geopolitics with social movements and labor conflicts. He authored several publications, including Obama nella crisi globale (Asterios, 2010), Eurocrisi, Eurobond e lotta sul debito (Asterios, 2011), I dieci anni che sconvolsero il mondo. Crisi globale e geopolitica dei neopopulismi (Asterios, 2019), and, in English, The US-China Rift and Its Impact on Globalisation: Crisis, Strategy, Transitions (Brill, 2024). Sciortino has also contributed to academic and militant discussions on topics such as the globalization debate and emerging neopopulism.
Steve Wright has written Storming Heaven: Class Composition and Struggle in Italian A utonomist Marxism (Pluto, 2017, 2nd edition), The W eight of the Printed Word: Text, Context and Militancy in Operaismo (Haymarket, 2022) and, with Jacopo Galimberti, The Year of Living Dangerously: Italy’s “Movement of ’77” (Verso, forthcoming).
John Garvey has been a political activist for more than fifty years. Soon after college, he began driving a taxi in New York City and became an active member of the Taxi Rank and File Coalition for eight years. In 1978, he stopped driving and entered into education work, which he continued to do for almost forty years—almost all of it at The City University of New York. Since the early 1990s, he has been an editor of Race Traitor, a co-editor (with Loren Goldner) of Insurgent Notes, and a member of the editorial group of Hard Crackers.
David Ranney is Professor Emeritus in the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois Chicago. Professor Ranney has also been a factory worker, a labor and community organizer, and an activist academic. He is the author of five books and numerous articles and monographs on issues of employment, labor and community organizing and US trade policy. In addition to his writing, he gives lectures on economic policy and politics and also finds time to be an actor and director in a small community theatre. He splits his time between Chicago, Illinois, and Washington Island, Wisconsin.
What People Are Saying
"Loren Goldner was a brilliant Marxist theorist and intellectual who wrote and taught during the longest period of working-class retreat in socialist history, one that began in the early 1970s and is still ongoing more than half a century later. But where other Marxists gave up in despair, Goldner never stopped struggling to understand why the downturn had occurred or what it portended for capitalism and the international proletariat. A voracious reader, his inquiries took him from the Judeo-Christian-Muslim Conviviencia of 10th, 11th, and 12th-century Spain through the Renaissance and into the modern period. Where other Marxists avoided the hard questions, he regarded it as a point of honor to tackle them head on. Not all the answers he came up with correct. In dozens of kaffeeklatsches in various Midtown locales, he and I would argue for hours on end, our disagreements often outnumbering the areas in which our viewpoints coincided. But he was always insightful and penetrating, as these interviews attest. As we enter into a period of unprecedented global turbulence, his ideas are more relevant than ever." Dan Lazare
"A vanguard figure of Marxist thought since the sixties, Goldner taught a new generation how to think and fight in the new millennium. This collection carries on that vital work after his departure—covering revolutionary history, anti-racist revolt, and the development of our current economic order—with uniquely clear and unwaveringly revolutionary insight essential to an internationalist struggle against capitalism today." Andy Gittlitz
"Loren was fond of saying, in reference to the opening lines of Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl,” “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by . . . graduate school and PhD programs.” This was his reaction to watching his soixante-huitard comrades in Berkeley – and elsewhere – disappear into careers as conformist professionals, becoming doctors, lawyers and tenured professors. Loren was never tempted by a life of material comfort or mainstream success; he stood fast and held his ground as an uncompromising lifelong revolutionary. Since I’d had many long conversations with Loren over the years, I knew bits and pieces of his life story. Yet this wonderful book fills in many unknown details, like how his early intellectual development led to later theoretical insights, how his proficiency in half a dozen languages took him on sojourns to meet revolutionaries across the planet, and how occasional adversity never stopped him from living his values to the end." Gifford Hartman
"The interviews and personal letters included in this volume recall the making of a brilliant theorist and true American original. Loren Goldner lived a polyglot life spanning four continents. Along the way he encountered numerous figures, from famous philosophers to obscure ultra-leftists. In a lively conversational style, Goldner reflects upon his years of isolation as a Marxist radical and events he both witnessed and barely missed. He traces the evolution of his own thought, touching on a wide range of topics. One gets a sense, in reading these documents, of Goldner's defiant belief that the world still might be transformed." Ross Wolfe
"This indispensable volume is the perfect introduction to the remarkable life and thought of Loren Goldner. Its dialogic format presents a wonderful distillation of Loren as so many of us knew him: a renaissance intellectual who was at once intransigent and generous with his talents and time -- and shone brightest of all in dialogue with his many comrades around the world." Jarrod Shanahan