Tag: History

History from below: What shaped the thought of E P Thompson, the great historian of ordinary working people? By Priya Satia

In 1976, a momentous six-week visit to India during the Emergency under Nehru’s daughter Indira Gandhi pivotally fuelled the vehemence of his scathing essay ‘The Poverty of Theory’ (1978) and undid his usual embarrassment about his father. On arrival, EP was warmly welcomed in acknowledgment of his father’s friendship with the late prime minister Nehru. He put… Read More History from below: What shaped the thought of E P Thompson, the great historian of ordinary working people? By Priya Satia

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Jairus Banaji on the Indian corporate strategy of subordinating farm households and family labor

NB: Continuing the discussion of issues raised by the ongoing kisan agitation, here are some observations made by Jairus Banaji on the nature of corporate domination and subjugation of peasant agriculture. They appeared on his Facebook page, the dates of which are appended. A long-standing dodge in mainstream commentary on economic policy as well as in political… Read More Jairus Banaji on the Indian corporate strategy of subordinating farm households and family labor

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Shalini Langer – A Call to Spy: Radhika Apte-starrer is un-showy and un-bombastic

A Call to Spy is a rare World War II film that doesn’t seek to strike awe and fear — the requisites now to win battles. Quite in character with its heroes, a group of largely unheralded women spies (“the headless”, as they were called) who helped Resistance efforts in a France occupied by Hitler’s… Read More Shalini Langer – A Call to Spy: Radhika Apte-starrer is un-showy and un-bombastic

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Matthew Rozsa: This Marxist philosopher foresaw the rise of Trumpism more than 80 years ago

His name was Walter Benjamin; born to a Jewish family in Berlin, Benjamin was present for a pivotal moment in history, and watched Hitler rise to power. By the time he wrote his most famous essay, he was an exile living in France amidst financial hardships, having recognized that the Reichstag fire three years earlier… Read More Matthew Rozsa: This Marxist philosopher foresaw the rise of Trumpism more than 80 years ago

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New book by Sumit Guha: History and Collective Memory in South Asia, 1200-2000

In this far-ranging and erudite exploration of the South Asian past, Sumit Guha discusses the shaping of social and historical memory in world-historical context. He presents memory as the result of both remembering and forgetting and of the preservation, recovery, and decay of records. By describing how these processes work through sociopolitical organizations, Guha delineates… Read More New book by Sumit Guha: History and Collective Memory in South Asia, 1200-2000

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Lynn Parramore: The perverted dreams of western modernity and capitalism may be exhausting themselves

Do you, inhabitant of the marvelous and menacing late-modern world, detect something missing – some kind of vitality, meaning, connectedness, love, beauty, or wonder? If so, you’ve likely searched for a story to explain it….  Critics of the disenchantment narrative have long noticed that if you look closely at western modernity, this ostensibly secular and… Read More Lynn Parramore: The perverted dreams of western modernity and capitalism may be exhausting themselves

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Book review: Time, Islam, and Ecological Thought in the Medieval Ruins of Delhi

In and around the dark recesses of the ruins of a fourteenth-century palace in Delhi, Anand Vivek Taneja finds a counterculture to the demands of today’s India. In Taneja’s view, this world of jinn veneration is more inclusive and less judgmental than the outside world and hearkens back to a fast slipping past, with elements… Read More Book review: Time, Islam, and Ecological Thought in the Medieval Ruins of Delhi

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Michael Luo: American Christianity’s White-Supremacy Problem

Early on in “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,” the first of three autobiographies Douglass wrote over his lifetime, he recounts what happened – or, perhaps more accurately, what didn’t happen – after his master, Thomas Auld, became a Christian believer at a Methodist camp meeting. Douglass had harbored the hope that Auld’s conversion,… Read More Michael Luo: American Christianity’s White-Supremacy Problem

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"Collective" is an urgent exposé of killer corruption & how journalism and the people fought back. By GARY M. KRAMER

Alexander Nanau’s extraordinary documentary “Collective” unfolds in the aftermath of a 2015 tragedy in the Bucharest nightclub Colectiv that gives this film its title. While 27 people died in the fire, more than 100 were injured and sent to area hospitals. However, an additional 37 of the 100-plus victims died as a result of bacterial infections while hospitalized. One father,… Read More "Collective" is an urgent exposé of killer corruption & how journalism and the people fought back. By GARY M. KRAMER

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