Scott Borchert’s review of Woody Guthrie, American Radical published in the May 2011 issue of Monthly Review is now available online.

“As Will Kaufman argues in his wonderful and uncompromising book, Woody Guthrie, American Radical, the folksinger was not driven by some abstract commitment to justice alone, but by the vision of a cooperative planned economy, one that could meet people’s needs directly and foster meaningful social, economic, and racial equality. He threw himself into the struggle for socialism, and insisted that ‘I never sing nor play one single word or note that is not for the help of the working classes to know more, feel better, rise up, and to own and control this world that they have built.'”