Portside

A leading historian of 19th century US history reviews two recent books on Lincoln and John Brown, charting the background to the Civil War and its lingering heritage today.

The anarchist philosopher Peter Kropotkin, writing in 1902, called Mutual Aid "the conscience — be it only at the stage of an instinct — of human solidarity." This new book offers insight into how that idea can live in today's world.

Camila Valle interviews Selma James about feminism, anti-imperialism, and a lifetime of international Marxist organizing.

A new book invites us to revisit the world and ideas of one of our great writers, who also served, during the 20th Century, as a one of our society's outstanding voices of conscience and tribunes for justice.

What will writers do when the outrage is over? Will they go back to writing about flowers and moons?

Ruth Ben-Ghiat delivers a superb examination of how close the US came to fascism – and how it has propped it up before.

The recent publication of Isabel Wilkerson’s widely acclaimed Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents returns to caste to explain U.S. racial hierarchy when wealth polarization, racial strife, and white supremacist revanchism are again on the rise.

Here is a history of fascism in Europe that may be helpful as we consider this troubled, and troubling, moment.

Under the slick suits and high tension shootouts, America’s favorite thrillers are hiding something.

A fascinating and timely history of how science developed via the achievement of pursuing only observation and experiment (not politics).