It was raining when we pulled up in front of a low, nondescript factory in Tver, two hours’ drive northeast of Moscow. The Tveris glass plant, built as a state enterprise, was celebrating its first anniversary of employee ownership. Tveris …
There is a touch of farce to some incidents in the Iran-contra affair: Robert MacFarlane carries a cake from a Tel Aviv bakery as a gift on his secret mission to Teheran; Fawn Hall smuggles official documents out of Oliver …
Legalization of drugs, or decriminalization, means different things to different people. For some it means taking the crime or the money out of the drug business. For others it has become a rallying cry, in much the same way that …
The growing importance of Islam was made suddenly clear with the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the subsequent rise of Moslem political activism and religious fundamentalism in countries as disparate as Syria, Sudan, the ex-Soviet Central Asian republics, and Algeria. Far …
“Civil society” became a catchword for the democratic dissidents of East-Central Europe in the 1970s and 1980s. For them, the creation of a vibrant sphere of voluntary associations outside of state structures represented both the most practical and attractive democratic …
During a recent trip to Sweden, I sat through the opening of the new session of Parliament. As I waited along with several hundred other people for King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia to arrive, I was struck by how …
Andrew Ross says that “the left is temporarily enjoying its first real foothold within the North American academy.” That claim reminds me of E.P. Thompson’s remark that the Althusserians thought themselves “the first white Marxists” to arrive on British soil. …
Although it cannot compare with the collapse of the theory and practice of Marxian socialism in intellectual interest or geopolitical significance, the current revival of interest in the life and work of John Dewey is an astonishing phenomenon. It is …
In his essay “Intellectuals in Politics,” Richard Rorty gives us his thumbnail sketch of the history of democracy in the United States. In the beginning were the Founding Fathers, fearful of mob rule. In the interim were the spread of …
Ukraine recently stopped supplying food to the Krasnoyarsk region of Siberia. Krasnoyarsk Atomgrad, which has an underground store for radioactive waste, responded by refusing to take spent nuclear fuel from Ukraine. New Tallin port, newly completed to serve the whole …
One balmy spring evening I am honored to give the Diana Vreeland Lecture at the Institute of Cultural Significance in San Francisco. Here is a chance, I think, to discuss a new kind of socially oriented African-American feature movie. Yet …
Whatever the ultimate outcome of the 1992 presidential campaign, the terrain on which the campaign is being conducted differs greatly from that of any recent election—and in ways that should favor the Democrats. This first post–cold war election takes place …
Is the ugly German making a comeback only two years after unification? So it seems, at least from the almost daily reports of brutal mob attacks, arson, and beatings of foreigners in both parts of recently unified Germany. These assaults …
The responsibility of intellectuals includes not only “a ruthless criticism of all things existing” (Marx), which is what most people on the left are usually occupied with, but also the imagination of alternatives. Not many writers have made lasting contributions …
The disintegration of the Soviet Union stemmed largely from the long decline of its economy. This decline undermined the role of the Communist party, which had been the central force in the country’s political and economic structures. The legitimacy of …
