New Left Review

As part of the British "New Left", a number of new journals emerged to carry commentary on matters of Marxist theory. One of these was The Reasoner, a magazine established by historians E. P. Thompson and John Saville in July 1956.^[1] A total of three quarterly issues was produced.^[1] This publication was expanded and further developed from 1957 to 1959 as The New Reasoner, with an additional ten issues being produced.^[1]

Another radical journal of the period was the Universities and Left Review, a publication established in 1957 with less of a sense of allegiance to the British communist tradition.^[1] This publication was more youth-oriented and pacifist in orientation, expressing opposition to the militaristic rhetoric of the Cold War, voicing strong opposition to the 1956 Suez War, and support for the emerging Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).^[1]

New Left Review was established in January 1960 when The New Reasoner and Universities and Left Review merged their boards.^[2] The first editor-in-chief of the merged publication was Stuart Hall.^[2] The early publication's style, featuring illustrations on the cover and in the interior layout, was more irreverent and free-flowing than later issues of the publication, which tended to be of a more somber, academic bent.^[1] Hall was succeeded as editor in 1962 by Perry Anderson.^[2]

In 1993, nineteen of the members of the editorial committee resigned, citing a loss of control over content by the Editorial Board/Committee in favour of a Shareholders' Trust, which they argued was undemocratic. The Trust cited financial sustainability of the journal as an issue. It comprised Perry Anderson, his brother Benedict Anderson, and Ronald Fraser.^[3] The journal was again relaunched in 2000, and Perry Anderson returned as editor until 2003.^[2]

New Left Review has followed the economic crisis as well as its global political repercussions. An essay by Wolfgang Streeck (issue 71) was called "the most powerful description of what has gone wrong in western societies" by the Financial Times's contributor Christopher Caldwell.^[4]

Writer Benjamin Kunkel is a member of the editorial committee of New Left Review,^[5] while Oliver Eagleton is on its editorial staff.^[6]

In 2003, the magazine ranked 12th by impact factor on a list of the top-20 political science journals in the world.^[7] By 2018, however, the Journal Citation Reports ranked New Left Review's impact factor at 1.967, ranking it 51st out of 176 journals in the category "Political Science".^[8] In 2021, the alternative index Scopus placed the journal as 99/556 Political Science and International Relations journals, with a citation score of 2.4.^{[citation needed]}

• Birchall, Ian, "New Left Review: The Search for Theory", International Socialism, Issue 115, 2 July 2007
• Blackledge, Paul (2004). Perry Anderson, Marxism and the New Left, Merlin Press.
• Derbyshire, Jonathan (15 February 2010). "New Left Review 61". New Statesman. 139 (4988): 50. ISSN 1364-7431. EBSCOhost 48028651.
• Collini, Stefan. "A Life in Politics: The New Left Review at 50", The Guardian, 13 February 2010.
• Lin, Chun (1993). The British New Left. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 0-7486-0422-7.
• Kagarlitsky, Boris (2000). "The suicide of {New Left Review}". International Socialism (88): 127–133. ISSN 0020-8736. EBSCOhost ALTP252882.
• Saval, Nikil. "New Left Review, 1962–Present", n+1, 6 October 2009.
• Thompson, Duncan (2007). Pessimism of the Intellect? A History of New Left Review, Merlin Press.
• Wiener, Jon (22 March 2010). "New Left Review at 50". Nation. 290 (11): 7–8. ISSN 0027-8378. EBSCOhost 48386356.

• Official website
• Website of Spanish Issue
• The New Reasoner Archive of Contents, Amiel Melburn Trust Internet Archive
• The Reasoner Archive of Contents, Amiel Melburn Trust Internet Archive
• Universities & Left Review Archive of Contents, Amiel Melburn Trust Internet Archive
• Text of the March 1993 resignation of the majority of the editorial committee.