Building the Commune: Radical Democracy in Venezuela (Verso) is the latest book by George Ciccariello-Maher, a professor of politics at Drexel University in Philadelphia. The book examines how grassroots communes and community organizations in Venezuela have been institutionalized by the radical leftist government there over the past several years, and how this interaction between state power and bottom-up organizing has succeeded and failed. Ciccariello-Maher recently spoke about the book with Greg Grandin at the Verso offices in Brooklyn. Check out the video of the event below: