Paul Robeson's Songs and Deeds Light the Way for the Fight Against Trump

Jeff Sparrow The Guardian (UK)
The great American radical showed how ordinary people mattered more than stars - a lesson today's celebrities could do with learning. These are strange times for popular music and politics. On the one hand, the opposition to Donald Trump now extends so deeply into the entertainment industry that the president struggled to find any real talent willing to play his inauguration.

Harry Belafonte Knows a Thing or Two

John Leland New York Times
The city native, about to turn 90, looks back at a glorious past and wonders what his next act will be. The rise of Donald J. Trump alarmed him, but not as much as the passion and numbers of Mr. Trump's supporters. 'I've never known this country to be so' - he paused before saying the word.' Though encouraged by the energy in the Black Lives Matter and Occupy movements, he felt that both lacked an ideology to make real change.

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Weaponizing Modernist Culture

Alan Wald Against the Current
At first glance, modern art and contemporary imperialism make strange bedfellows. The book under review both charts the history of the CIA's work in promoting US corporate interests through its manipulation of culture--what was then called cultural diplomacy-- while also working to define modernism. The reviewer congratulates the author on his first task, but criticizes him on the second.

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Terry Eagleton: Still the most Formidable Critic of Populist Late-Capitalism

Melanie McDonagh New Statesman
Both analytical and droll, Terry Eagleton's Culture explores how culture evolved from rarified sphere to humble practices, and from a bulwark against industrialism's encroaches to present-day capitalism's most profitable export. Eagleton both illuminates culture's collusion with colonialism, nationalism, the decline of religion, the rise of and rule over the "uncultured" masses, as well a means for cultivating social life and social change.

Classical Music Steps In for BlackLivesMatter - Classical Notes Add to Voices of Protest

William Robin; Priscilla Fran New York Times
On July 13, 2015, Sandra Bland died while in police custody in Texas. On July 13, 2016, the one-year anniversary of her tragic death, The Dream Unfinished held a concert to commemorate her and the large number of Black women impacted by police killings. Whether Black women and girls are killed by police directly; their loved ones are killed by police; or police refuse to intervene or respond - Black women, girls, and femmes are affected by police brutality and killings

"The Crucible" a Stunning Parable of McCarthyism's Attack on America

Lucy Komisar The Komisar Scoop
A crucible is a pot in which metals or other substances are heated to a very high temperature or melted. Miller's story is about events that took place in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. But it's really about the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), America's thought police of the early 50s, which burned through American rights and professed values. It's the best play of the season.(Closes July 17, 2016)

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The Story of the Book That Explained the World

Donald Liebenson Chicago Tribune
The Encyclopedia Britannica has gone through many editions, but the 1910-1911 scholars edition is nonpareil. Dennis Boyles' book says why, and enumerates what is lost when readers gain accessibility and cost-savings from easy access to Wikipedia and other venues but lose in depth and authority.

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Edith Piaf: Like Cold Oysters

Bee Wilson London Review of Books
In David Looseley's take on the iconic French chanteuse Edith Piaf, her notoriously elusive life story is rendered as cultural history, drawing out what Piaf meant - and still means - to France and to her wider audience. Looseley notes that her musical persona was highly and brilliantly constructed. She projected a stage mask of suffering that was all the more affecting because the audience saw there was deprivation behind it. With Piaf, you underwent her.

Black Culture and History Matter

Kirsten Mullen The American Prospect
It took 150 years after America officially abolished slavery to get a national museum on the black experience.
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