Borders Books
Some recommendations from the Republic of Letters.
20183 Article(s) by: Yi San
Yi San is a freelance writer based in New York.
Orson Welles, South of the Border
After his post–Citizen Kane slump, Orson Welles teamed up with Universal for a big Hollywood comeback about corrupt police on the US-Mexico border. The executives balked at his vision — but today Touch of Evil is regarded as Welles’s final masterpiece.
Partisans on Ponies
One German’s idiosyncratic obsession with the American frontier led to an unlikely West German–Yugoslav cinematic partnership that fed the European appetite for cowboys and Indians.
Issue 59: Letters + The Internet Speaks
No border can contain our subscribers’ enthusiasm.
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.
Walter Benjamin’s Graveyard
On the run from the Gestapo, Walter Benjamin committed suicide on the French-Spanish border in 1940. The place where he spent his last days now overlooks the most brutally policed border of the EU.
The Red Scare Blueprint
A 1917 effort to deport political radicals from Seattle became the model for all 20th-century deportation crusades.
How Can We Organize Immigrant Workers?
Bosses will always try to divide native-born and immigrant workers. Our response has to be unconditional solidarity.
Civic Nationalism Is Worth Defending
J. D. Vance has attacked birthright citizenship and equality before the law by claiming that “America is not an idea.” But the realization of the idea of civic nationalism has been our greatest achievement.
Nativism vs. the Bottom Line
While the Trump administration’s draconian immigration policies may hurt businesses reliant on undocumented labor, the fractured capitalist class won’t stand up to the president.
Issue 59: Misery Index
Crunching the numbers on the class war.
Passports for Sale
A growing number of states are willing to sell citizenship and the privileges it brings — if you can afford to pay. The lucrative trade in “golden passports” exposes the dark side of capitalist globalization and its unequal valuation of human life.
Biafra’s Back
More than 50 years after the end of the civil war, there’s a new generation of Biafran separatists in Nigeria.
Cowboys and Italians
In the 1960s, Italian filmmakers took the cowboy out of America. They gave the western a wild, blood-soaked makeover that revived the genre for global audiences and imbued it with new political relevance.
Should We Invade Israel?
For decades, advocates of humanitarian intervention argued that the international community should take military action against states engaged in extreme human rights abuses. Israel is one such state.
Jacobin Turns 15 Today
Here’s why we still publish.
How Israel’s War Economy Defied Economic Predictions
Many observers thought that years of prolonged war would cripple Israel’s economy. But the opposite has happened. By giving billions of shekels in compensation to reservists, Israel has managed to keep its citizens spending while Gaza burns.
In Venezuela, Trump Is Engaged in Plain and Simple Murder
Donald Trump’s assassinations of alleged drug traffickers in Venezuela with zero due process represent some of the greatest dangers of his second term. They can’t be understood apart from the bipartisan history of national security state overreach.