Writing about the German Left and Israel—the debates on anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism of the last several years—often feels like a race against history. Not a day goes by without another piece being added to this complex and troublesome mosaic. No …
The resolution required to get out of an imperial or a humanitarian-improvement occupation is not different in kind from the heave of the will required for getting in. The problem is that getting in was made possible by a morale …
Wage Theft in America: Why Millions of Working Americans Are Not Getting Paid—And What We Can Do About It by Kim Bobo The New Press, 2009, 336 pp., $17.95 During the last presidential transition, George W. Bush made his first …
An inspiring if flawed documentary, Made in L.A. follows three Los Angeles sweatshop workers as their lawsuit against a low-price retail label and the community campaign to support them developed from 2001 through 2004. Enthusiastically received by critics and activists …
Europe has plunged into its severest economic recession since before the Second World War, with rising unemployment, plant closures, and a credit crunch as the financial system falters. The political challenge this sets for the European Left looks daunting and …
The slow pace of argument in quarterly magazines, the lag between the latest political news and our commentary on it, is sometimes a disadvantage, but not always. This spring it protects us against the sin of early disillusionment. President Barack …
One of the most important solutions to the current economic crisis is a bill that, outside the labor movement and anti-labor business lobbies, almost no one has heard of: the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for …
Early in 2008—before the economy started acting up—the New York Times published a special issue of its Sunday magazine—the Money Issue, though it might equally well have been called the “Good” Issue. Its cover package touted various strategies for transforming …
Sheri Berman has written an exhortation to the “present day” democratic socialist Left in the “Western world” to get over “the loss of its vision of a postcapitalist society,” to stop denigrating efforts to reform capitalism, and to begin agitating …
Let me begin by thanking Joanne Barkan for her thoughtful comments. On many points we agree, but on several big ones we do not—about the distinctiveness of the social democratic tradition, its superiority to other traditions on the democratic Left, …
During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama and John McCain were invited to Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church for back-to-back conversations about where they stood on issues important to Warren and his conservative evangelical congregation. “Pastor Rick,” as Obama addressed him, asked …
The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World by Niall Ferguson Penguin Press, 2008, 432 pp., $29.95 [contentblock id=20 img=gcb.png] Nestled in the acknowledgments at the end of Niall Ferguson’s new “financial history of the world” lies …
Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North by Thomas J. Sugrue Random House, 2008, 688 pp., $35.00 [contentblock id=20 img=gcb.png] Sweet Land of Liberty is a survey of the northern civil rights movement. Thomas …
For much of the twentieth century, Detroit was proudly known as the Motor City. Today, a drive up Woodward Avenue, its once bustling main street, takes you past abandoned buildings and debris-strewn lots. Landmarks of Detroit’s storied history, however, are …
Barack Obama aspires to be a “transformative” president, with his hopes particularly fixed on America’s finally achieving a universal health care system. But would his health plan go far enough to transform a system that has been dominated and distorted …
