Christopher Clark’s Revolutionary Spring is a gripping account of Europe’s 1848 revolutions. The questions raised by those movements and their ultimate defeat are still vitally important for socialist politics in our own time.
A decade ago, Germany’s renewable energy transition was seen as a model for the rest of the world. Today much of the working class has turned against all things green. What happened?
In Finland, a coalition of conservative and far-right parties is slashing social spending and squashing unions. It’s an authoritarian brand of neoliberalism that is undoing welfare while giving tax cuts to high earners.
In an oligarchic system, there are few better predictors of how a president will govern than where they got their money. Here’s who’s funded both the Biden and Trump campaigns.
For years, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has pursued a harsh crackdown against Kurds and dissidents in the name of anti-terrorism. Now he’s using his role in NATO to launder his image and entrench his rule at home.
The Russian public response to the invasion of Ukraine has been muted with antiwar protests quickly repressed. But the slow progress of the war is feeding a series of other crises, leaving Vladimir Putin’s inner circle increasingly isolated.
Karl Marx’s final years of life are often overlooked as a period of intellectual and physical decline. But his thought remained vibrant to the end, as he addressed political questions that are still relevant to us today.
Boots Riley’s remarkably easy confidence and visual flair in I Love Boosters is a tonic in an era of boring CGI slop. He’s one of the most compelling filmmakers working today.
British socialists may be reeling from December’s election defeat, but the injustices that fueled their movement are still as glaring as ever. Sooner or later, the forces inspired by Jeremy Corbyn will regroup and resume the struggle, under the leadership of a new generation.
With Bernie Sanders now out of the race, commentators from left and right are finding fault with the campaign itself, arguing that there was too much class politics or not enough. But the problem wasn’t Bernie’s campaign strategy — it was the full force of the Democratic establishment that so effectively consolidated against him.
The rise of psychiatry was funded by America’s Gilded Age industrialists. Their aim: to cast society’s ills as problems of individual "mental health."
Evo Morales's government has increasingly incorporated conservative elements into the Bolivian state.
The Wolf of Wall Street's eleventh hour Hail Mary doesn't atone for the rest of the film's gleeful celebration of rich assholes.
Last June, France’s second city voted for the “Marseille Spring,” a left-wing coalition that put an end to two decades of conservative rule. But difficult pandemic conditions — and now the abrupt exit of mayor Michèle Rubirola — have raised questions over its ability to put ordinary citizens in charge of city hall.
Twelve months after the electoral defeat of Corbynism, we shouldn’t allow its opponents to rewrite history. It was the Brexit crisis with all its side effects that dealt a crippling blow to Corbyn’s project, not a left-wing policy agenda that spoke to the issues of the future.
When Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari came to power in 2015, some hoped his administration would enact a left-populist agenda. A close examination of his administration’s ideological roots reveals that was always wishful thinking.
In 2018, hospitals, nursing homes, and their lobbyists gave $2.3 million to New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s political apparatus. Now health care executives are getting immunity for their deadly negligence during the coronavirus pandemic. Critics say New York’s liability shield is linked to higher nursing-home death rates during the pandemic.
The Left’s beachhead in Congress has grown in the last few years. But at the current rate of expansion, the Left will remain a minority in the Democratic Party’s congressional caucus until 2091. We can’t wait that long for change.
Mike Davis and Jon Wiener's chronicle of Los Angeles in the 1960s, Set the Night on Fire, isn't just a stunning portrait of a city in upheaval half a century ago. It's a history of uprisings for civil rights, against poverty, and for a better world that speaks directly to our current moment of mass protest.
The lead actors in today’s blockbuster films are celebrities, not movie stars. That’s not their fault: the industry has reduced actors to stewards of profitable intellectual property, robbing them of the opportunity to connect with audiences and shine.