Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro

Special, early access to an extended conversation about the imminent release of the new translation (by Henry and Salvatore) of Domenico Losurdo's Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend from Iskra Books. The release of the book is imminent, and is available from the Iskra Books website, where it is currently linked at https://www.iskrabooks.org/copy-of-the-dark. Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro is Professor at the Geography Department of SUNY New Paltz and is chief editor for the journal Capitalism Nature Socialism. His book Socialist States and the Environment is available from Pluto Press: https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745340418/socialist-states-and-the-environment/. You can also find the journal Capitalism Nature Socialism for more invaluable anti-capitalist environmental perspectives: http://www.cnsjournal.org/. David Peat is one of the editorial board members at the Center for Communist Studies and their imprint Iskra Books. You can follow him on twitter @dajveism. Help support the show by signing up to our patreon, where you also will get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory

Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro, a geographer and translator focused on socialism and environmental impacts, discusses Cuba’s agroecology, Soviet ecological planning and soil science, and debates around biology and dialectical materialism. Conversation covers Cuba’s Special Period adaptations, Soviet reforestation and chemicalization, and politicization of genetics and epigenetics. Short, provocative, and wide-ranging.

Dr. Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro challenges myths about environmental management in socialist regimes, highlighting success stories overshadowed by bias. From Soviet conservation to China's struggles, the podcast explores achievements in emissions and biodiversity. It reveals the role of global manufacturing, ethical quandaries, and calls for reevaluation of critiques. The conversation covers diverse topics such as environmental catastrophes, growth complexities, challenges of socialist influences, workers' representation, addressing contradictions in the US, comparisons with capitalist countries, and the influence of socialist regimes on East Asian developmental models.