World of Communism

Catalog description

This course examines the history of communism. It traces the origins and development of Marxist theories of inequality as well as sometimes tragic efforts to put Marxist theory into practice in, among other places, Russia, China, and Cuba. Particular attention is paid to choices and commitments of individual communists. What vision of a new world motivated communists? What solutions to class, gender, and racial inequalities did they propose? Why was their idealism so often twisted into carnage?