First posted January 17, 2018 NB: Amidst the fanfare of the Israeli Prime Ministerial visit to India, and the warmth being displayed towards him by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it may be of interest for Israeli citizens to know the ideological roots of India’s current ruling dispensation. DS Briefly put, it’s simple: their icon, V.… Read More Some information for Israelis (and the rest of us)
BY WILLIAM D. HARTUNG Here’s a seldom commented-upon reality of this century and this moment: the United States remains the number-one arms-exporting nation on the planet. Between 2017 and 2021, it grabbed 39% of the total global weapons market and there’s nothing new about that. It has, in fact, been the top arms dealer in every year but one for… Read More Joe Biden, the National Security State, and Arms Sales
First posted August 28, 2014 NB: With love to our very own Mother Courage; to whom so many of us owe so much, and whom we still call Ma Sen. She passed away in the evening of November 18, 2024. There are no words to express what I, along with many friends of my generation,… Read More Nandita’s story. Calcutta, August 1945
First posted Hiroshima Day, August 6, 2014 NB: This article was written for an edited volume on contemporary terrorism, more specifically, terror in the name of Hindutva. I disagree with the habit of approaching terrorism with a prefix, but nevertheless wrote it, in order precisely to make my point more explicitly. It was completed more than… Read More A matter of time
In our age of global conflict, István Hont is finally having his moment Danielle Charette and William Selinger In 2001 a dispute over hiring in Harvard’s government department briefly became national news. The faculty had voted unanimously to offer a tenured position to the historian István Hont (1947-2013), a specialist in Enlightenment political thought at King’s College,… Read More The Political Prophet Harvard Didn’t Want
First posted June 28, 2013 NB: Carl von Ossietzky was the first of only two Nobel Peace Prize winners (1935) who was prevented by their government from receiving the prize. The second was Liu Xiaobo. The Chinese Communist Party thereby followed the example of the Nazi regime. What is even more noteworthy is that when… Read More The Nobel Peace Prize For Espionage. Remembering Carl von Ossietzky
First posted January 18, 2017 Venu Madhav Govindu & Deepak Malghan In November 1933, following his fast against a separate electorate on caste lines and the subsequent political settlement known as the Poona Pact, (Mohandas Karamchand) Gandhi embarked on a year-long nationwide campaign against untouchability. Thanks to his extensive travels across the country, he got… Read More Defying capitalism and socialism, Kumarappa and Gandhi had imagined a decentralised Indian economy
First posted August 04, 2015 Sheldon Wolin is one of the most highly respected political thinkers in Western academia. He is emeritus professor at Princeton, now aged 93. Wolin was a bomber pilot in the Pacific region with the USAF during the Second World War. He is known for coining the term inverted totalitarianism. His most… Read More Can Capitalism and Democracy Coexist? Chris Hedges interviews political philosopher Sheldon Wolin
First posted February 16, 2018 There are innumerable versions of the birth of the modern era. Historians do not even agree about the date of this event. Some make modernity begin in the 15th and 16th centuries, with the so-called Renaissance (a concept invented in the 19th century by Jules Michelet, as the French historian… Read More Robert Kurz: The destructive origins of capitalism. The ‘military revolution’ in 16th century Europe
The Christmas truce, 1914 – Steven Johns A short history of the widespread but unofficial truce between British and German troops on the Western front over Christmas, 1914 during World War I. Despite the mass slaughter orchestrated by European governments, rank-and-file soldiers during World War I often attempted to resist the war effort and refuse… Read More The Soldiers’ Christmas Truce 1914 / Armistice Day, November 11, 1918: In Pictures
After the truth-shower 