Personal Reflections on War and Peace
A response to James Carroll
The history of nonviolent successes is underreported, understudied, and under-understood. ...
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Part 6: A New Treaty?
Revelations of the War in Ukraine: An anti-war activist’s personal and political reckoning
In this unprecedented context, a laserlike focus on banning the bomb can be a politically viable process, surpassing the failed efforts of bygone years, and even leading to the broader mitigation of “militarism” toward which peace movements have striven without success....
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The Women Who Built Playboy
An interview with podcast host Amy Rose Spiegel
Women who were really responsible for shaping Playboy were Hefner’s closest confidants; they worked in the clubs and interacted with the magazine in ways that changed the trajectories of their lives....
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Documenting the City of Refugees
An interview with Susan Hartman on her new book about Utica’s transformation by refugees
I wanted to put in perspective what these refugees had gone through, what the countries they left had gone through, what the refugee camp experience was like. So, there is this part where I talk about when they were each on the run: it is very traumatic material and this ...
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Nonviolence, Black Power, and “the Citizens of Pompeii”: James Baldwin’s 1968
The radicalization of an unparalleled figure in American literature and African American cultural politics
On the third Sunday after the march, September 15, 1963, six Black children were killed in three separate incidents—one of which was the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church—in Birmingham. That day marked the end of Baldwin’s brief career as a literary celebrity and the beginning of his radicalization, ...
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Introducing the Latest Issue of James Baldwin Review
Honoring Baldwin’s legacy in a new volume of academic research, criticism, and personal essays
As we continue to bring together a mixture of scholarship, reviews, and reflections—from a variety of voices—it is our humble aim to continue to grow our readership and expand the legacy and impact of our namesake author’s moving works and searing insights. ...
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Giorgia Meloni and the Far Right’s Transatlantic Turn
Italy’s formerly fascist party aligns itself with American Republicans, British Conservatives, and Likud in Israel
Giorgia Meloni now represents a cadre of European far-right leaders whose views are fully legible to the American Far Right. ...
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Part 5: After Ukraine
Revelations of the War in Ukraine: An anti-war activist’s personal and political reckoning
The Ukraine war has revealed, that is, that the single stoutest pillar of the current strategic “balance” is off kilter—a dangerously leaning tower, as it were, of peace....
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What You Don’t Know Can’t TIF You
Pretend something isn’t a problem and it goes away, right?
TIFs date back to the 1950s, and every state except Arizona has them in one form or another. There are thousands upon thousands of TIF districts all across the country. Chances are decent you’ve heard about one in your local area....
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Is Putin Bluffing in Ukraine?
Though many Russians are anxious about Putin’s new mobilization of citizens to fight in Ukraine, some are also preparing to survive a nuclear conflict
Putin’s nuclear threats provoked immediate reaction among leaders of Western countries, including Ukraine. The world community is concerned about Russian tactical nuclear weapons intended for use on a battlefield. ...
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The Wall Street Journal Resurrects Mandeville
Do poor Americans have too much?
According to a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed by Phil Gramm and John Early, the problem is not that the wealthiest Americans have seen their fortunes dramatically explode. It is rather that the poorest Americans have too much! ...
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Part 4: Moments of Moral Reckoning after Wars End
Revelations of the War in Ukraine: An anti-war activist’s personal and political reckoning
Efforts to immediately erect guardrails around nuclear weapons, given the sorry history that followed upon their falling short, deserve to be lifted up and celebrated as examples of what can follow in the chastened aftermath of a disastrous war....
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