Portside

Audre Lorde (1934-1992) was one of the most significant U.S. writers of the last quarter of the 20th Century. She described herself as "Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet." This new collection of her poetry and prose allows readers to remind themselves of her thought and its significance.

We’re not living in the dystopias of George Orwell or Aldous Huxley, the author insists, but in the shifty algorithmic universe of Philip K. Dick, where the world that the Internet and social media shape is less a system than an ecology, a proliferation of unexpected niches, and entities created and adapted to exploit them in deceptive ways. In this view, it’s a world in which technology is developing in ways that fudge the difference between the human and the artificial.

This "very important" book offers a new examination of the role of African Americans in the American Revolution and of how racism was used in the service of creating the United States in the late 18th Century.

A first-rate compendium of environmental sanity, the book under review is also a sound, radical and compelling critique of capitalist planning, making the case that only a revolutionary transformation on socialist principles can generate the political framework needed to save the planet.

This book has prompted a wide-ranging and rich discussion about the state of liberal democracy today, especially in the United States. Here, reviewer Issac uses the book to inquire into a wide range of topics regarding how we might think about democratic norms and procedures in the current period.

Sun Tsu said “Know your enemy and know yourself and you will always be victorious." Following that wisdom, Portside is running this otherwise execrable interview with Niall Ferguson, a leading myrmidon of the white shoe Right, trumpeting his retrograde views on—among other things— reactionary icons Edmund Burke and Charles Murray, along with snarky comments on unnamed post-colonial critics who he doubts—with no justification—never read his work.

Le Guin's novels, short stories, and poems have been delighting audiences for over half a century.

Shortly before his death, James Baldwin wrote that in the U.S., “White is a metaphor for power,” an observation that is deep background for much of the discussion in the masterly book under review, where race and class are intertwined, yet surface differences are used to split the labor force and maintain capital’s hegemony. The book can usefully inform debate on race and class and aid in reconstructing a revolutionary project in the context of Trumpworld.

Wideman's mixed-genre work examines the lives and legacies of the young Till, his father, Louis Till, and what they can tell us about racism and about families.

Fresh from her remarks at the Golden Globes Awards ceremony, Oprah Winfrey is being touted in the mainstream media as a potential presidential candidate in 2020. Whether it's a passing fancy or the start of a serious draft effort, now is a good time to look back on celebrity journalist Kitty Kelley's 2010 biography of Oprah, which the reviewer in an essay alternately caustic and refreshing, credits Kelley with "a very powerful understanding of what makes a modern celebrity. She gets the journey, to use a favorite Oprah word, but she also gets the cost of the journey."