Contributions by:
Ian Williams
A quarter of a century since he wrote it, Howe’s biography of Trotsky raises far more questions than it can directly answer. How could a devoted democratic socialist describe a founder of the Bolshevik Party and thus of the Soviet state as “one of titans of the century,” not least when the author also recognizes…
Read Full Article...When Mel Brooks had Hitler tripping across the stage in the “Producers,” the campy banality makes the horror manageable and laughable. Hannah Arendt’s thoughts on the banality of evil almost had her burning at the intellectual stake, but the concept is indispensable for understanding the real world – and perhaps no more so than the…
Read Full Article...Shakespeare’s contemporary John Webster wrote that death hath ten thousand several ways for men to make their exits. But he was silent about the number of ways they re-enter. John Rodden has filled the gap with Scenes from an Afterlife, his account of the near ten thousand several ways that Orwell has been revived to…
Read Full Article...Rum and revolution have been associated together for centuries. Rum is “the global spirit with its warm beating heart in the Caribbean,” the one factor that is shared by all the cultures of the region, and enthusiastically drunk by the descendants of those who were enslaved to produce it. I began drinking rum with uninformed…
Read Full Article...During the Iraq War, many people asked, what is the UN doing? In fact, in a quietly significant way it was refusing validation for an action that Kofi Annan has called “not in conformity with the UN Charter,” or when pressed “illegal.” The actual United Nations is often slow and inefficient in activity. When it…
Read Full Article...Rum and revolution have been associated together for centuries. Rum is “the global spirit with its warm beating heart in the Caribbean,” the one factor that is shared by all the cultures of the region, and enthusiastically drunk by the descendants of those who were enslaved to produce it. I began drinking rum with uninformed enthusiasm…
Read Full Article...Back in 1961 FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover told staff it was their duty to “reaffirm” the bureau’s Christian purpose … to defend and perpetuate the dignity of the nation’s Christian endowment,” since Christianity was “the main line of resistance against all enemies of our heritage.” (P 229) Many of us had assumed that this public…
Read Full Article...According to his own last words on the subject, just before his death, Orwell was a supporter of Socialism and of the British Labour Party which had swept to power in 1945. Before then, for most of his writing career, certainly from The Road to Wigan Pier in 1937 onwards, George Orwell was an avowed…
Read Full Article...I. Introduction: A Night to Remember So that We Can Forget November 4th, 2008 was a night that African Americans will always remember. It was also a night that most white Americans will also remember. Unfortunately, it was also a night that allowed many Americans to forget that which should never be forgotten. What have we…
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