Jacobin’s Summer Reads Guide
We asked our editors and contributors what you should read this summer. They answered with everything from romances set in the former East Germany to thrillers about Russian mercenaries.
19506 Articles by: Karl Leffme
Karl Leffme is a socialist in New York CIty.
The Palestinian Left Is a Vital Part of Its Nation’s History
From the diaspora to the occupied territories and the Palestinian minority in Israel, left-wing forces have played a major role in organizing popular struggles for democratic rights in Palestine. A new Jacobin podcast series looks at their impact and legacy.
Israel and Iran Have Set the Stage for the Next War
Iran has long held that conflict with Israel can be managed by limiting its retaliation within clearly defined parameters. But through its preemptive attack, Israel has revealed that it is not a rational actor and upended the rules of war.
How Zohran Mamdani Can Succeed as Mayor
Assembling a successful electoral coalition is difficult, but forging a governing coalition to run the city is even harder. Longtime social movements scholar Peter Dreier offers some advice for the potential next mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani.
Financial Capitalism Is More Dangerous Than Ever Today
The crash of 2008 was supposed to augur the end of ultraspeculative financial capitalism. But financial actors have actually gone from strength to strength since then, and fictitious capital is a bigger menace to global economic stability than ever.
Emma Tenayuca Championed Class Struggle and Migrant Rights
Almost a century ago, labor activist Emma Tenayuca led Mexican American women in San Antonio’s legendary pecan shellers’ strike, facing down bosses, police, and the Klan. Today amid renewed nativist hate, we can learn from her example.
Online Fraud Relies on a Horrifying Slave Labor Complex
Discussion of cyberfraud tends to focus on people who are cheated out of their money by scammers. But this vastly lucrative industry also relies on the forced labor of those who have been trafficked to work in prisonlike compounds in Southeast Asia.
What Mamdani’s Win Can (and Can’t) Teach Us
Zohran Mamdani’s astounding triumph shows the power of bread-and-butter economics and the bankruptcy of the Democratic establishment. But how many of its lessons can be applied nationally?
Syria’s Kurds After Assad
Months after dictator Bashar al-Assad fled Syria, the country’s Kurdish population faces continued uncertainty — and Turkish air strikes. A photo series by Angéline Desdevises portrays the hardships of Kurds adapting to an ever-unstable reality.
Zohran Mamdani Spoke to Working-Class Immigrants’ Needs
A community organizer in New York’s working-class Asian neighborhoods argues that what set Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral primary campaign apart was his taking seriously the needs of immigrants and working-class people squeezed by the cost of living.
The Hidden Human Cost of AI Moderation
Training AI often means staring at humanity’s worst atrocities for hours at a time. Workers tasked with this labor endure psychological injury without support — and face legal threats if they speak about it.
Kirsten Gillibrand Doesn’t Seem Bothered by Palestinian Deaths
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand attacked Zohran Mamdani this week with Islamophobic falsehoods, later partially walking back the comments. It’s of a piece with Gillibrand’s indifference to the genocidal Israeli war that is increasingly outraging New Yorkers.
Iulii Martov Was the Russian Revolution’s Lost Prophet
The Russian socialist leader Iulii Martov warned that a revolution that sacrificed democracy would end up destroying its own ideals. Martov lost the political battle after 1917, but the development of the Soviet system vindicated his early criticisms.
Andrew Cuomo Thought He Could Bend a Passive Party to His Will
Zohran Mamdani’s stunning upset over Andrew Cuomo reveals how the Democratic Party’s hollowness and passivity cuts both ways — first enabling Cuomo’s absurd candidacy, then failing to insulate him from a left-wing challenger.
Europe’s Daddy Issues
NATO chief Mark Rutte this week praised Donald Trump for talking tough to Iran and Israel, publicly commenting, “Daddy sometimes has to use strong language.” Rutte’s fawning is a cringeworthy display of European subservience to Trump.
Robert Reich Teaches One Last Class to the Next Generation
Jacobin sat down with former labor secretary Robert Reich to talk about his new documentary, The Last Class, democratic socialism, and why we’re possibly in an even more unequal Gilded Age than the original.
The Biden Hawk Behind Trump’s Iran War
Outgoing CENTCOM commander Michael Kurilla has had Iran in his crosshairs for years as part of a larger vision for keeping China out of the Middle East and squeezing it in an eventual conflict.
The British Establishment Still Fears the Ideas of Tony Benn
Having been vilified and spied on when he was an active politician, Tony Benn was patronizingly dismissed in his later years. A new collection of Benn’s writings shows why his democratic socialist vision was such a powerful threat to the status quo.
A Billionaire Trump Backer Is Desperate to Stop Zohran Mamdani
Billionaire Bill Ackman and his rich friends want someone, anyone, to bring down Zohran Mamdani. Their pitch: take our money, it won’t be much time and energy, and maybe you’ll get famous enough to use the campaign as a stepping stone to higher office.
As the Left Erupted in Protest, Ansel Adams Moved Right
For decades, Ansel Adams ran in circles of left-wing photographers with a radical eye. But come the 1960s, he was denouncing the UC Berkeley Free Speech Movement protests and calling for expulsions.