Merry Christmas to you. Much gratitude for the reading list and all the great substack articles you delivered in 2025. Looking forward to many more in 2026.
Saunders also has "The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters" published in 2001. Related is Hugh Wilford's "The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America " covers some of the same ground.
Just published as what could be part 2 of Saunders' "Piper" is "Who Paid the Piper of Western Marxism" (the "Intellectual World War" series) by Gabriel Rockhill. When people like James Lindsay critique "cultural Marxism" he is criticizing a marxism already filtered thru the CIA's notion of a "compatible left", a marxism denatured of its genuine revolutionary elements and turned into the vapid and incoherent entity it is today.
"Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism?" offers a crash course in the history of imperialist propaganda, as well as in the Marxist method for analyzing culture and ideology. Author Gabriel Rockhill demonstrates the explanatory and transformative superiority of a dialectical and historical materialist approach, while elucidating how the world of ideas is a crucial site of class struggle. He then engages in a meticulous counter-history of the Frankfurt School—which made a foundational contribution to Western Marxism—by situating it within the global relations of class struggle and the imperialist war on actually existing socialism. With the explicit and direct backing of powerful elements in the capitalist ruling class and the world’s leading imperialist state, the Frankfurt School developed a widely promoted form of compatible critical theory as an ersatz for dialectical and historical materialism. The volume concludes by bringing to the fore the positive project that serves as the guiding methodological framework for the work as a whole: a thoroughly anticolonial and anti-imperialist Marxism dedicated to building socialism in the real world. Drawing on extensive archival research to pull back the curtain on ruling class machinations, Rockhill’s book elucidates how the intellectual world war on the socialist alternative has sought to shore up and promote a “compatible left” intelligentsia while misrepresenting, maligning, and trying to destroy the revolutionary left."
It is worth noting whose interests the CIA serves: it serves the financial oligarchy: Wall Street, City of London, aka, finance capital, monopoly capitalism and imperialism (what many people call the "globalists"). Unbekoming has reviewed many books associated with this cohort. From Cecile Rhodes, to central banks, to the CFR to oligarch foundations (often fronts for or collaborators with the CIA) like the Rockefeller, Ford and Open Society foundations (George Soros).
Merry Christmas to you. Much gratitude for the reading list and all the great substack articles you delivered in 2025. Looking forward to many more in 2026.
Very much appreciated...thank you! Merry Christmas and a blessed new year.
A New Year reading list. Thank you.
Happy Christmas and a Merry New Year! Thank you for sharing knowledge outside of managed information.
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas! Thanks for all the intel since 2020…
The BEST money ever spent. The best savings of time as well! Thank you for your generous and life-supporting work. Happy Holidays!
Have you read all these books? If so, congratulations. Quite an achievment. All look interesting.
Happy Holidays. I admire your ability to read so many books and report them back to your fans.
Let's all hope for a better New Year!
Saunders also has "The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters" published in 2001. Related is Hugh Wilford's "The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America " covers some of the same ground.
Just published as what could be part 2 of Saunders' "Piper" is "Who Paid the Piper of Western Marxism" (the "Intellectual World War" series) by Gabriel Rockhill. When people like James Lindsay critique "cultural Marxism" he is criticizing a marxism already filtered thru the CIA's notion of a "compatible left", a marxism denatured of its genuine revolutionary elements and turned into the vapid and incoherent entity it is today.
"Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism?" offers a crash course in the history of imperialist propaganda, as well as in the Marxist method for analyzing culture and ideology. Author Gabriel Rockhill demonstrates the explanatory and transformative superiority of a dialectical and historical materialist approach, while elucidating how the world of ideas is a crucial site of class struggle. He then engages in a meticulous counter-history of the Frankfurt School—which made a foundational contribution to Western Marxism—by situating it within the global relations of class struggle and the imperialist war on actually existing socialism. With the explicit and direct backing of powerful elements in the capitalist ruling class and the world’s leading imperialist state, the Frankfurt School developed a widely promoted form of compatible critical theory as an ersatz for dialectical and historical materialism. The volume concludes by bringing to the fore the positive project that serves as the guiding methodological framework for the work as a whole: a thoroughly anticolonial and anti-imperialist Marxism dedicated to building socialism in the real world. Drawing on extensive archival research to pull back the curtain on ruling class machinations, Rockhill’s book elucidates how the intellectual world war on the socialist alternative has sought to shore up and promote a “compatible left” intelligentsia while misrepresenting, maligning, and trying to destroy the revolutionary left."
https://nyupress.org/9781685901356/who-paid-the-pipers-of-western-marxism/
It is worth noting whose interests the CIA serves: it serves the financial oligarchy: Wall Street, City of London, aka, finance capital, monopoly capitalism and imperialism (what many people call the "globalists"). Unbekoming has reviewed many books associated with this cohort. From Cecile Rhodes, to central banks, to the CFR to oligarch foundations (often fronts for or collaborators with the CIA) like the Rockefeller, Ford and Open Society foundations (George Soros).