On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the extraordinary experience of the Paris Commune, it is fundamental to draw a number of lessons from it. The measures a government takes regarding its Central Bank, the debts of working class people, public debt and private banks are decisive. If a popular government does not implement… Read More Eric Toussaint on 150 years of the Paris Commune of 1871
She unearthed fantastic prehistoric creatures that had been lost to the sands of time, and her achievements — overlooked and uncredited while she was alive — also almost remained buried. An unsung pioneer of paleontology, Mary Anning is finally getting some of the recognition she deserves thanks to the tireless work of academics and campaigners.… Read More Katie Hunt: 'Ammonite' and 5 more works about women overlooked by history
The theater historian Louise Kerz Hirschfeld, who was married to the production’s set designer, Leo Kerz, remembered the mood inside the theater on the opening night. “People were weeping,” she said in a phone interview. “At the end there was this deadly silence. Then, people got up and there was a 20-minute applause. For the… Read More Rolf Hochhuth, Who Challenged a Pope’s Wartime Silence, Dies at 89 ( May 2020). By Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim
France has consistently underestimated the devastating impact of its nuclear tests in French Polynesia in the 1960s and 70s, according to groundbreaking new research that could allow more than 100,000 people to claim compensation. France conducted 193 nuclear tests from 1966 to 1996 at Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls in French Polynesia, including 41 atmospheric tests until 1974… Read More France has underestimated impact of nuclear tests in French Polynesia, research finds
Published in New English Weekly, 21 March 1940 It is a sign of the speed at which events are moving that Hurst and Blackett’s unexpurgated edition of Mein Kampf, published only a year ago, is edited from a pro-Hitler angle. The obvious intention of the translator’s preface and notes is to tone down the book’s ferocity and… Read More George Orwell Reviews Mein Kampf: “He Envisages a Horrible Brainless Empire” (1940)
One of the unfortunate temptations of the Trump era has been the rush to find radical breaks with the past where, in truth, the lines of continuity are strong. The themes of Trump’s speech were already well circulated among the Anglo-American elite, whether in the work of the political scientist Samuel Huntington or in the… Read More Book review: Pankaj Mishra’s Reckoning With Liberalism’s Bloody Past
Vladimir Nabokov – one of Stepanova’s many literary companions in In Memory of Memory – once wrote: “I think it is all a matter of love: the more you love a memory, the stronger and stranger it is.” Years ago, Maria Stepanova visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC to do… Read More Book review – 'Love’s labours should be lost': Maria Stepanova, Russia's next great writer
NB: These books contain an exposure of contemporary nihilism at work. See also the links at the bottom of this post. DS Boris Johnson is “an unrepentant and inveterate liar” who feels he is not subject to the same rules as others, Sylvie Bermann, the former French ambassador to the UK during the Brexit vote, says… Read More Goodbye Britannia – books reviewed
A letter shared by the family of a deceased former New York police officer alleges that the officer, the New York City Police Department and the FBI played a role in the murder of the powerful civil rights leader Malcolm X. The outspoken antiracism activist and former spokesman for the Nation of Islam died on… Read More Deathbed Letter From Former Cop Claims NYPD, FBI Helped Kill Malcolm X
The following conversation took place in December 2020. On the occasion of Jairus Banaji’s latest publication, A Brief History of Commercial Capitalism, Sheetal Chhabria and Andrew B. Liu spoke to contextualize his work within a multi-decade trajectory of history, theory, and labor organization, across Europe and Asia. We noted the particular significance of an original intervention… Read More “Where is the working class? It’s all over the world today”: Jairus Banaji in conversation with Sheetal Chhabria and Andrew Liu
After the truth-shower 