Michael Walzer Archives - Public Seminar

Philosophy

From Karl Mannheim and Daniel Bell to Vaclav Havel

June 10, 2024 • by Alex Rossen

Among the many reckonings of [the twentieth century] was a reckoning, not merely with Marxism—but with the process of ideology-making itself....

Politics

The Triumph of Just War Theory (and the Dangers of Success)

Considering the triumph, and questionable uses, of the theory since the Vietnam War

June 10, 2024 • by Michael Walzer

All of us in the antiwar camp suddenly began talking the language of just war—though we did not know that that was what we were doing....

The Triumph of Just War Theory (and the Dangers of Success)

Politics

Announcing the Spring 2024 issue

April 26, 2024 • by Social Research

The Spring 2024 issue of Social Research marks the 90th anniversary of Social Research. The Spring 2024 anniversary issue reprints articles that have appeared in Social Research over the last 20 years. ...

Migration

Held Hostage to One’s Values

On the responsibility to refugees at the Belarusian-Polish border

April 25, 2023 • by Lidia Zessin-Jurek

The Polish-Belarusian border crossing has been, since mid-2021, one of the world’s many border zones where people get sick and die under the watchful eye of the state....

The Left

Keeping the Left Alive: Michael Walzer’s Political Action Reissued

If any book can help left-wing activists figure out how not to burn out, this is probably it

October 22, 2019 • by Geoffrey Kurtz

That hopeful and interesting work is the subject of Walzer’s book Political Action: A Practical Guide to Movement Politics. Originally published in the spring of 1971 and reissued this year by New York Review Books, Political Action is in a genre by itself. Like an organizing manual but more thoughtful and suggestive, like ...