Helge Krogs 6th column. Pax publishing house is currently publishing its spring list, and there is every reason to raise expectations high. The feature of politically important books is fuller than in a long time. It is true that the central books about Norway are still missing, but Pax assures that there are a number of subject books (shipping, foreign capital and concentration of power) under construction. This neworientering will be in full swing until the autumn.

But it's enough to read on in the meantime. Helge Krogs 6th column has already arrived and should be read as a counterbalance to official Norwegian war history. Helge Krog reveals how important Norwegian industry was to the Germans, at that time the profits were decisive. [See MODERN TIMES in April. ed. note.] Until April 9 comes the book NS from party to sect, written by Hans Olav Brevig. A very up-to-date book is also about Norwegian armament, war industry and military policy, War State Norway, by Nils Petter Gleditsch and Sverre Lodgaard.

Karl Marx in selection

Everyone is discussing Karl Marx and his theories, and Pax is now starting a cheap box series with Karl Marx's own works in selection. All the books in the series are designed as study assignments. An attempt to carry on an analysis of capitalist society was written by the Englishman Ralph Miliband. The state and capitalism will undoubtedly stimulate Norwegian debate, not least because it is becoming increasingly clear how the state is used as an instrument for a bourgeois policy.

A Norwegian original contribution in the Marx debate is provided by Sigurd Skirbekk: New Marxism and Critical Dialectics.

Papandreou, Myrdal and Lukacs. The book is at the center of the debate on US imperialism Imperialism in our time, written by American economist Harry Magdoff. It is arguably the best evidence of the economic mechanisms used to suppress the people of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Andreas Papandreou has a settlement both with Western capitalism and Eastern European party dictatorship. The name of the book is Towards a totalized world? and the Norwegian edition is by Finn Gustavsen.

Finally comes Jan Myrdals Confessions of a disloyal European in Norwegian, a kind of political autobiography. For the first time in Norwegian, the Hungarian theorist Georg Lukacs is also presented. His book on Lenin also comes out to the 100th anniversary of Lenin's birth.

Where do we sail?

Particularly specific about Norwegian conditions is the startling report from the Ammerud residential area in Oslo. Now architects Anne Sæterdal and Thorbjørn Hansen have made a popular edition, a fine example of how research assignments can be processed for "ordinary people".

Debate will undoubtedly be renewed according to Gunnar Bull Gundersen's documentary Where do we sail?, Sven Wernström's plays A game about pug also aroused astonishment, and the play is now released together with an addition to the Norwegian debate, both outside and inside the school walls.

The social science series continues with Norwegian books, Theo Koritzinsky writes Voters, parties and foreign policy, and Per Otnes publishes a survey on The Sami nation and Norwegian colonialism. In the same series come books by Johan Galtung, Tord Høivik and Nils Petter Gleditsch.

Among the 45 titles are also Simone de Beauvoirs The other sex, Arnold Wesker's trilogy that the TV theater showed last year, new contributions in the lyric series and a book on the Germany issue by Kjell G. Rosland and Bjørn Johannesen. It should also be mentioned that Pax is following up on its success The little red. This time it is Soldier's little red og God's little red, most recently a collection of Bible quotes with revolutionary content. 

Curriculum in radical debate

Also on the long spring list is Aime Césaire's book Colonialism, and a book on chemical and biological warfare. Mads Strand and Hans Petter Aastorp have compiled an anthology with anarchist reading pieces. Astor Reigstad has written Sexual education for high school and high school, and a number of older books are coming up again.

Orientering will try to devote greater attention to Norwegian cheap books in the future, and will therefore return to most of these books as they are published. Let's just say it again: The Pax list has a consistently good quality, with some top books that are almost curriculums in radical debate.