The financial crisis of 2007–2008 inspired a shallow but significant revival of Marxist analysis in academic life. A violent upsurge in theory, however, has corresponded to no particular insurrection in practice. If any radical left tendency has been responsible for inspiring action, the palm should go to Marxism’s historic antagonist on the Left—anarchism.
This article is part of a debate on the German plan to eliminate nuclear energy. To read Will Boisvert’s initial article, >click here. To read Osha Gray Davidson’s response, click here. Thanks to Osha Gray Davidson for commenting. I’ll address …
This article is part of a debate on the German plan to eliminate nuclear energy. To read Will Boisvert’s initial article, click here. To read his reply to Osha Gray Davidson, click here. Germany’s renewable energy project should be critically …
Two horrifying events occurred this spring that, at first, may seem to have nothing in common. In Bangladesh, more than a thousand garment workers died in the collapse of the Rana Plaza, a building whose owners knew it was a …
Last year came news about the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager, at the hands of a nervous neighborhood vigilante. More recently, a graduate student in neuroscience named James Holmes opened fire in a Colorado theater with …
Austerity: The History of A Dangerous Idea by Mark Blyth Oxford University Press, 2013, 304 pp. Debtors’ Prison: The Politics of Austerity versus Possibility by Robert Kuttner Knopf, 2013, 352 pp. More disheartening than the economic catastrophe in the United …
My first typo trauma came when I was a teenaged summer clerk-typist for the public information office of the state mental health department. Ever since I’d learned to read, I’d been hooked on print. Typing and proofing press releases about …
Napalm: An American Biography by Robert M. Neer Belknap Press, 2013, 352 pp. Pilots release their ordnance. Silver, cigar-shaped canisters drop away. A simple and deadly munitions miracle, the weapon represents American know-how and military necessity. For close-quarters infantry support …
The poor are pretty much absent from public and political discourse, except as an abstraction—an income category low on the Index of Socioeconomic Status—or as a generalization: people dependent on the government, the “takers,” a problem. Neither abstraction nor generalization …
For almost twenty years the phrase “Spanish architecture” was spoken in hushed and reverent tones. It evoked not just Gaudí and his perpetually unfinished spires, but a new breed of visionaries who were reinventing the profession and doing wonders for …
In 2010, a slate led by Karen Lewis ousted the incumbent leadership of the Chicago Teachers Union, promising deeper community engagement and a more aggressive defense of teachers and public education. In 2012, with Lewis as president, CTU mounted the …
When the audio book of Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique was to be recorded back in 2009, producers approached Parker Posey to voice the canonical feminist text. Most known for her portrayal of lovable slacker ditzes such as the soft-serve-wielding Libby …
How can we confront the challenge of climate change, especially when those hit first and hardest by climate change are poorer and more marginalized than those with the power to take large-scale action?
In April, Hugo Chávez’s handpicked political heir, Nicolás Maduro, was elected president of Venezuela in an unexpectedly close race. Maduro will try to continue the Chavismo revolution, amid accusations of electoral fraud and the extreme polarization of the political landscape. …
Nearly two decades after the end of its brutal war, Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnia, for short) remains paralyzed by political corruption and ethnic mistrust. The country staggers from one constitutional crisis to another, the economy vegetates, many young people leave, …
