Biafra’s Back

More than 50 years after the end of the civil war, there’s a new generation of Biafran separatists in Nigeria.

Building Civilization at Shenzhen Speed

Once the poorer neighbor of Hong Kong, Shenzhen has been transformed into a showcase for the speed, power, and dynamism of Chinese development — and a study in extreme inequality.

High Rise, Hard Times

A Soundtrack for Progress

For veteran music critic Simon Reynolds, the “avant-lumpen” sound captures how it feels to be alive today with raw voices and synthetic soundscapes.

A City Built for Sunshine

In a moment of climate fatalism, ecomodernists are imagining a green urbanism that doesn’t come at the cost of abundance or beauty.

Poland’s Milk Bars Live On After Communism

In Poland, postwar Communist rule has few defenders. But state-subsidized eateries known as milk bars, designed under state socialism to free people from “kitchen slavery,” continue to thrive today.

The Lost Future of Socialism

British Labour politician Anthony Crosland’s The Future of Socialism was once the bible of revisionist social democracy. Looked at today, it is far from prescient but surprisingly compelling.

The Art of Being Wrong

Wyndham Lewis was perhaps the most talented English painter and novelist of the first half of the twentieth century. How did he become best known as a fascist?

Hayao Miyazaki’s Red Roots

Studio Ghibli is not the Japanese Disney but the anti-Disney. Dreamed up by animators with roots in the Japanese communist movement, its films celebrate creative labor and human solidarity against capitalism and war.

The Churches of the Polish People’s Republic

Postwar Poland saw a huge wave of church-building, within and against the professedly socialist system.

Cautionary Tales

The English science-fiction writer J. G. Ballard claimed to believe in nothing. Yet his prophetic dystopias reveal a deep awareness of the brutality of class rule and imperialism.

Kate Macintosh’s Gentle Brutalism

In 1960s London, the architect Kate Macintosh designed great modernist housing for the elderly, still beloved by its residents — but how long can it survive?

Alex Niven Believes in the Political Potential of Poetry

In light of the failures of mainstream politics across the board, socialist writer Alex Niven wants to inject a sense of hope back into contemporary life. A champion of the North of England, he believes that literature can help.

Futurist Forgeries

No art movement has ever been so comprehensively faked as the revolutionary “Russian avant-garde” of the 1910s and 1920s.

Yes, Ukraine Is a “Real Country”

The borders of Ukraine are no more arbitrary than those of Poland, Greece, Italy, or Germany.

The Foreman

Mark E. Smith of the Fall was one of the late 20th century’s great working-class musicians, but his music suffered from his overwhelming resentment of his middle-class audience.

Twitter May Be Dying. It’s Time to Build Our Own Social Network.

For all its problems, Twitter served as a public town square — and now, Elon Musk seems determined to drive it into the ground. It’s past time to build a democratic, noncommodified alternative.

Mike Davis Was the Best Socialist Writer of the Last Half Century

Mike Davis forced himself to look at the very worst of our society and world. What he found wasn’t pretty. Yet he never abandoned the search for seeds of positive change — and for socialism.

King Charles Has Some Very Strange Ideas About How Cities Should Look

For many years, Charles Windsor has foisted his opinions about urban design on the British public. The bizarre projects that the new monarch has sponsored, from Dorset to Transylvania, speak volumes about his cloistered and conservative worldview.

War and Instagram in Ukraine

For the last few years, enthusiasts have documented Ukraine’s Soviet buildings online. Since February, they’ve been bombed and shelled. What happens next?