Marxists Internet Archive Publications has published the first three volumes of CLASSICS IN ACTIVITY THEORY, reprints of English translations first published by Progress Publishers in the 1970s, of the second generation of Soviet followers of Lev Vygotsky. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, while remaining in the public domain, these works have become unavailable, in most cases even on the secondhand market. And yet there remains a vast research community across the world that builds on Vygotsky and Activity Theory.Each of the three books beginning the series is a collection of the English translations from one of the three authors: Alexei LEONTYEV, Alexander MESHCHERYAKOV and Evald ILYENKOV, plus a short preface by Prof. Mike Cole of the University of California, San Diego. Every university or education faculty library should have this series. Titles included are, from Leontyev, The Development of Mind: The Problem of the Origin of Sensation, The Biological and Social in Man’s Psyche, An Outline of the Evolution of the Psyche, The Historical Approach to Study of the Human Psyche, The Development of Higher Forms of Memory, The Psychological Principles of Preschool Play, The Theory of the Development of the Child’s Psyche, Child Development and the Problem of Mental Deficiency, Activity and Consciousness; from Ilyenkov, The Ideal in Human Activity: Dialectical Logic, Activity and Knowledge, The Universal, The Concept of the Ideal, Reflections on “Materialism and Empirio-Criticism” and Meshcheryakov, Awakening To Life: Deaf-blind Children, Problems of Deaf-blindness, Forming Behaviour and Developing Their Minds, Learning Programmes for the Deaf-blind.
Volumes are available from Erythrós Press and Media for US$25 + postage per volume but purchasers of all 3 books -- or 4 books with the purchase of Hegel’s Logic -- pay a reduced price of $20 per book with reduced shipping costs.
