Tag: History

Sam Dresser: How Camus and Sartre split up over the question of how to be free

First posted August 25, 2019 They were an odd pair. Albert Camus was French Algerian, a pied-noir born into poverty who effortlessly charmed with his Bogart-esque features. Jean-Paul Sartre, from the upper reaches of French society, was never mistaken for a handsome man. They met in Paris during the Occupation and grew closer after the Second World… Read More Sam Dresser: How Camus and Sartre split up over the question of how to be free

Dilip

March on Rome under scrutiny

Richard J. B. Bosworth Luka Lisjak Gabrijelčič It’s 100 years since Mussolini took political control of Italy. Given a period of violent tensions across large parts of Europe after the First World War, what specifically lay behind the rise of fascist totalitarianism? And how does the Duce’s leadership compare to that of other contemporary authoritarianism?… Read More March on Rome under scrutiny

Dilip

The Sacrificial Altar of Extractive Capitalism: Notes on Abolition and Transition

As was the case with the British Empire, today’s global form of extractive capitalism is a system of human sacrifice hidden in plain sight. A critical look at the palm oil industry reveals both the violence of this trajectory in an exemplary way and the challenges for a transition into a just world, social thinker… Read More The Sacrificial Altar of Extractive Capitalism: Notes on Abolition and Transition

Dilip

Heda Margolius Kovaly (1919-2010) : Under a Cruel Star: A Life in Prague 1941–1968

First posted January 26, 2017 Three forces carved the landscape of my life. Two of them crushed half the world. The third was very small and weak and, actually, invisible. It was a shy little bird hidden in my rib cage an inch or two above my stomach. Sometimes in the most unexpected moments the… Read More Heda Margolius Kovaly (1919-2010) : Under a Cruel Star: A Life in Prague 1941–1968

Dilip

My Correct Views on Everything: Leszek Kolakowski’s correspondence with E. P. Thompson (1974)

First posted December 10, 2012 From the Socialist Register, 1974 Dear Edward Thompson Why I am not very happy about this public correspondence is because your letter deals as much (at least) with personal attitudes as with ideas. However I have no personal accounts to settle either with Communist ideology or with the year 1956;… Read More My Correct Views on Everything: Leszek Kolakowski’s correspondence with E. P. Thompson (1974)

Dilip

Columbus was a thug. But the church was the big problem

By CELIA VIGGO WEXLER I don’t understand the adulation that some Italian-Americans continue to bestow on Christopher Columbus, who, as history demonstrates, was less a hero than a thug, exploiting and enslaving indigenous peoples. But the real culprit behind the subjugation of non-European peoples across the globe wasn’t an individual, or even a monarch. It was the… Read More Columbus was a thug. But the church was the big problem

Dilip