Tag: History

The Price of Monotheism

Nothing has so radically transformed the world as the distinction between true and false religion NB: This is one of the most thought-provoking studies in the history and philosophy of religion that – in my limited reading – I have come across. The author Jan Assman (1938-2024) was a German Egyptologist, cultural historian, and religion… Read More The Price of Monotheism

Dilip

The Mask is Off. After Ukraine, imperialism is now the norm

NB: Whereas I agree with Professor Mehta’s arguments about the sinister significance of Trump’s treatment of President Zelenskyy; the following is where I disagree. He says the Russian invasion of Ukraine was only the second time since World War II that one country had claimed an entire other country… It was a war to erase… Read More The Mask is Off. After Ukraine, imperialism is now the norm

Dilip

Surviving Hard Times

The Last Generation of Black Americans Under Jim Crow and the Culture of Racism in America By Douglas H. White Today, racism remains a poisonous force in America. Fascism and authoritarianism are on the rise and President Donald Trump is giving voice to such hate, making it state policy and central to his presidential agenda. Recently,… Read More Surviving Hard Times

Dilip

The Vietnam Women’s Movement for the Right to Live: a non-communist opposition movement to the American war in Vietnam

An Thuy Nguyen This article examines the political and diplomatic struggles in urban South Vietnam from the perspective of women in the Vietnamese Women’s Movement for the Right to Live (WRL) during the Vietnam War. This movement was a timely response to the American war of aggression, which had destroyed the fabric of South Vietnamese… Read More The Vietnam Women’s Movement for the Right to Live: a non-communist opposition movement to the American war in Vietnam

Dilip

Norman Solomon: How the Warfare State Paved the Way for a Trumpist Autocracy

Costs of War Project at Brown University indicated that the “war on terror” persisted on several continents. “The war continues in over 80 countries,” said Catherine Lutz, the project’s co-director. The war’s cost to taxpayers, the project estimated, was already at least $8 trillion…. Supplementing the automatic $3.8 billion in annual U.S. military aid to Israel, special new… Read More Norman Solomon: How the Warfare State Paved the Way for a Trumpist Autocracy

Dilip

Nietzsche and Lou Andreas-Salomé: Chronicle of a Relationship 1882

Robert S. Leventhal Lou Salomé was undoubtedly one of the most intelligent and articulate women of her era. Her own writing, especially her essays on sexuality and erotism, have value not merely in their historical reflection of the era in which they were written, but in their own right as documents of radical femininity in the… Read More Nietzsche and Lou Andreas-Salomé: Chronicle of a Relationship 1882

Dilip

‘Here lives the monster’s brain’: the man who exposed Switzerland’s dirty secrets

Inspired by Che Guevara, Jean Ziegler has spent the past 60 years exposing how Switzerland enabled global wrongdoing. His enemies accuse him of treason Ziegler would use the term “secondary imperialism” to define his country’s modus operandi. This was not the first-order French, British or, later, American imperialism… It was a more discreet kind of… Read More ‘Here lives the monster’s brain’: the man who exposed Switzerland’s dirty secrets

Dilip

The Great Transformation by Karl Polanyi is a classic critique of capitalism – but it wasn’t an overnight success

Gareth Dale Hungarian social theorist Karl Polanyi is best known for his exploration of the collapse of liberal institutions that occurred between 1914 and 1945. His book, The Great Transformation, traces the catastrophes of those decades to the globalisation of market liberalism. In his view, the attempt by liberal social engineers to establish a “self-regulated” market… Read More The Great Transformation by Karl Polanyi is a classic critique of capitalism – but it wasn’t an overnight success

Dilip