Facing Reality: the New Society.Where to look for it How to bring it closer A statement for our time

First published by Correspondence Publishing Company, Detroit, Michigan, 1958

First published in 1958 by a tiny group of James’s supporters in Detroit, Facing Reality was popularized by the Chicago Rebel Worker group, Solidarity Bookshop, and other anti-authoritarians in the 1960s. Later taken up by the SDS journal Radical America in its early IWW/surrealist-oriented period.

Writing in collaboration with Cornelius Castoriadis and Grace Lee Boggs, James examines the practical process of social revolution in the aftermath of the Hungarian revolution.

A later edition in 1974 includes an introduction by James’s longtime friend, John H. Bracey, situating the book in its 1950s/60s context.

“Among the most forward-looking books of the 1950s, Facing Reality is not only a merciless critique of the reactionary rationalism that then passed for Marxism, but also a passionate celebration of workingclass creativity and revolutionary internationalism at their inspired best.” -Franklin Rosemont, author of Revolution in the Service of the Marvelous (2004).

A PDF version of the book is available free to download here.