Neukölln is a working-class, multicultural district of Berlin that embodies the turnaround in the German left’s fortunes. This has also made it the target of efforts to demonize socialist party Die Linke and disqualify its Muslim voters.
Socialism is on the march, and capitalism’s defenders are on the ropes. Shawn Gude’s American Socialist: The Life and Legacy of Eugene V. Debs, a biography of the most prominent socialist agitator in American history, could hardly be more timely.
The stability of Vladimir Putin’s rule has long relied on encouraging citizens to ignore politics. But last month’s wartime elections instead saw a different approach, staging popular support for a further centralization of power.
In 1908, on one of his five presidential runs, legendary socialist organizer Eugene Debs embarked on a whirlwind tour across the country on his own train, the Red Special. His mission: spread the socialist gospel to any American who would hear him out.
In September, workers in White Plains, New York, won the first union at any of AutoZone’s nearly 7,000 US stores, despite an aggressive anti-union campaign. The next day, the company fired a lead organizer. Then another.
Robert Kramer’s films captured the New Left from the inside, from its promising beginning through its painful unraveling. He faded from view mostly because his work was so hard to see. In our new age of political volatility, he deserves a revival.
In 1939, the 25¢ paperback made America a nation of readers, delivering thrillers, classics, and Pulitzer-winning books. So why did the Big Five publishers just kill the mass market paperback?
The Phillips curve holds that low unemployment drives inflation, meaning that controlling prices requires putting workers out of work. Its continuing influence shows how power over the money supply shapes class power.
Larry McMurtry’s 1985 cowboy epic is finding a new generation of readers online. Its revival raises an awkward question for publishing: What happened to the big, bloody, male-coded literary novel and to the men who used to read and write them?
At its best, the Left has championed the cause of freedom against both political and economic tyranny. Does the spread of scourges like social media addiction and sports betting justify more restrictions on individual liberty than we’ve typically accepted?
Religious identity has become an unusually prominent battleground in next year’s French election. During the pope’s visit to the country last week, left-wing France Insoumise resisted ultraconservative attempts to monopolize Catholic identity.
After years of warnings that the war in Ukraine could spiral into a full-on Russia-Europe conflagration, the conflict has reached a point where this is a real possibliity. It’s a prospect that threatens not just European lives but the entire globe.