Samuel McIlhagga is a British reporter and book critic covering foreign affairs, culture, and political theory.
Raphael Samuel, one of Britain’s most brilliant historians of the popular classes, was a contemporary of E. P. Thompson and Stuart Hall but never enjoyed their level of fame. He practiced a form of history from below that gave agency to the working class.
For the 100th anniversary of the first Labour government, one of the party’s leading intellectuals, Labour MP Jon Cruddas, charts its history in A Century of Labour. He explains how technocrats took over the party — and how the Left can rebuild mass politics.
In the last century, liberals claimed that Hegel had inspired fascism, and socialists accused him of having held back Marxist theory. Today the German idealist has drifted into obscurity. A new book makes the case for his contemporary relevance.
After the Cold War, ideologues declared capitalism victorious. But war and far-right parties have once again returned to the continent. The root of this disorder lies in the neoliberalism of the 1990s and the defeat of the Left.
Decades of rule by establishment politicians opened the door for right-wing populists like Donald Trump to cynically claim to represent the marginalized. They rose on the back of crises that are here with us to stay.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine transformed the energy politics of Europe: America became Germany’s main importer of liquid natural gas and Putin pivoted east. This new order is likely to generate more conflicts than the one that came before it.
The Scottish writer Tom Nairn, who died last month, was the most perceptive critic of the pathologies of the British state. His writings on nationalism and the Labour Party are essential for anyone attempting to understand British society.
Over seven decades, the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre has advanced one of the most radical critiques of capitalist modernity. But in opposing modernity, he has denied a key insight of Marxism: socialism must develop, not reject, capitalism’s dynamism.
In Liberalism and Its Discontents, Francis Fukuyama diagnoses the political and psychological malaise caused by capitalism. His analysis makes one thing clear: liberalism is incapable of addressing the social, economic, and ecological crises it faces.