Benjamin Case is a researcher, educator, and organizer living in Pittsburgh.
The Western Balkans was the only place in Europe where resistance movements defeated the Nazis without having to rely on Allied troops. Any progressive future for the region will have to build on the proud legacy of this mass liberation struggle.
The official narrative of the Dutch resistance downplayed the role of the Left in the struggle against Nazism, but it also served as a barrier against the legitimation of far-right ideas. With the far right now in power, that barrier has collapsed.
The struggle against Nazism in France was also a struggle against homegrown reactionary forces embodied in the Vichy regime. Eight decades after a seemingly decisive defeat, the heirs of Vichy are banging at the gates of power in Paris.
In Germany, public discussion of Victory Day has mostly revolved around the ban on Russian officials attending commemorations. The dispute risks losing sight of the real history of World War II — and how relevant it remains in an era of growing far-right threats.
Eighty years ago today, Europe celebrated the defeat of fascism after a titanic struggle. Yet as historian Enzo Traverso points out, the latest anniversary of VE Day comes at a moment when the far right is stronger than at any point since 1945.
Half a century ago, New York City paraprofessional educators waged a campaign to win their first contract as part of the teachers union. It’s a history the union can draw on to win needed advances for paras today.
Sanctions used to be deployed as a slap on the wrist for foreign leaders, but over the past several decades they have become a central weapon of US foreign policy. Excessive use of sanctions may have begun to undermine US global hegemony.
For decades, the Western aid industry became ever more powerful in Sudan, even as it grew quieter about the reasons for underdevelopment. Rather than combat the root causes of poverty, NGOs served only to alleviate the number of deaths.
The Biden administration barred two fossil fuel executives from taking board seats at Exxon and Chevron after finding they had schemed to fix oil prices. Now Trump wants to let them off the hook — after they donated millions to the GOP this past election.
With local and national elites indifferent to working-class struggles over the costs of housing, childcare, groceries, and more, socialist New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is finding success by putting affordability at the heart of his campaign.
As Donald Trump tries to bar almost all refugees from entering the US, his administration wants to use federal funds reserved for at-risk refugee populations to facilitate an influx of white South Africans.
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins has been eager to cancel collective bargaining rights for most Veterans Affairs union members — probably because he knows those unions are a bulwark against VA privatization.
The electoral victories of Donald Trump and remaking of the Republican Party in his image can’t hide a basic fact: his party is fractured and weak.
Over the past few decades, the Christian right has grown to wield tremendous power in the United States. Its conflictual, Manichean worldview has offered reassuring certainties to its followers in an era of social dislocation.
Christopher Hill’s work on 17th-century England has been remarkably influential. In books like The World Turned Upside Down, he recovered the history of vanquished radicals like the Levellers and the Diggers and linked them to our own time.
The extraordinary longevity of the Catholic Church could make it seem like a body that floats above the everyday world of political and economic life. In reality, the Church has always been firmly linked to structures of power and property.
On November 5, 2018, eight people were killed in Marseille when two buildings collapsed. The site remains a scar on France’s second city, and local residents are still waiting for someone to be held accountable for the deaths.
Donald Trump’s nominee to regulate retirement savings, Daniel Aronowitz, wants to protect employers and retirement fund managers from lawsuits alleging they fleeced retirees with exorbitant fees — a rule change his company could profit from.
J. D. Vance has attacked birthright citizenship and equality before the law by claiming that “America is not an idea.” But the realization of these ideals has been America’s greatest achievement.
Labor PM Anthony Albanese promised more of the same, with maybe a little bit of tinkering if the budget allows. And thanks to opposition leader Peter Dutton’s abysmal Trump imitation, it won Labor a landslide victory in Saturday’s Australian election.