Ten years ago today, just before reaching his sixty-second birthday, Mike Marqusee died after a long struggle with cancer. Marqusee, who was born in the United States but made his home in London, was one of the finest socialist writers of his time in the English (or perhaps any) language.
His books and articles covered a huge variety of subjects, but two of his main concerns stand out and have only gained in significance over the last decade: the politics of mass culture under capitalism, especially sports, and the relationship between Israel, Zionism, and Jewish identity.
Before going into more detail about his body of work, it’s worth taking a moment to consider what type of writer Marqusee was, and why he stood out among his contemporaries. In his essay “Renewals,” published at the start of the new century, Perry Anderson discussed the impact of academic culture on the anglophone left:
A major change of the past epoch, often remarked upon, has been the widespread migration of intellectuals of the Left into institutions of higher learning. This development — a consequence not only of changes in occupational structure, but of the emptying-out of political organizations, the dumbing-down of publishing houses, the stunting of counter-cultures — is unlikely to be soon reversed. It has brought with it, notoriously, specific tares. Edward Said has recently drawn attention sharply to some of the worst of these — standards of writing that would have left Marx or Morris speechless. But academization has taken its toll in other ways too: needless…
Auteur: Daniel Finn
