Portside

Patricia Highsmith published "The Price of Salt" in 1952 under the name "Claire Morgan," a pseudonym. Since then, the book has become a classic of lesbian literature. Filmmaker Todd Haynes has recently released "Carol," his film adaptation of the novel, to wide acclaim. John Copenhaver reconsiders the original novel, guiding us through this suspenseful tale.

It may be something of a stretch to claim, as Malcolm Harris does, that "anarchists get the artists and tacticians, Marxists get the theorists and politicians." Yet this remains an insightful review. It surveys the history of anarchism and its relationship to Marxism as it considers how adherents of these historic modes of thought might find themselves acting in this political year.

The centennial celebration of Joe Hill's execution is being marked by concerts, symposiums, meetings and forums, and the publication of new books, or new editions. Labor historian Paul Buhle reviews two of these. Franklin Rosemont's Joe Hill: The IWW & the Making of a Revolutionary Workingclass Counterculture, with a new introduction by David Roediger; and Philip S. Foner's The Letters of Joe Hill, with new material by Alexis Buss and foreword by Tom Morello.

The Voyage of the Sable Venus, the highly regarded debut poetry collection by Robin Coste Lewis, won the national book award this year for poetry. The title poem unites art history with the history of slavery and racism. Here, Dan Chiasson introduces this book, which has become a must-read across the literary spectrum.

Using original source material Brian Dolinar arrives at a different explanation of why the popular front of 30s and 40s broke up, than that of mainstream media of that time, and since. The key agents of disunity were not the Communists but the manifold assault by the rightwing establishment. The US ruling class used opinion-molding Red-scare and Red-baiting campaigns in the mass media and culture. A lesson for today with the re-growth of the radical right.

One book that's making it onto lots of people's best-of-the-year lists is Counternarratives, a collection of stories and novellas by John Keene. It's an extraordinary collection that uses historical fiction to make visible the human beings that racism and imperialism have pretended were not there. Not only that, but, as McDowell shows us in his review, this is a set of awfully good stories, too.

Socialist thought is re-emerging at the forefront of the movement for global ecological and social change. In the face of the planetary emergency, theorists have unearthed a powerful ecological critique of capitalism at the foundations of Marx's materialist conception of history. This has led to a more comprehensive conception of socialism rooted in Marx's analysis of the rift in "the universal metabolism of nature" and his vision of sustainable human development.

This ethnographic study of America's gun culture focuses on Detroit and Flint, Michigan, and it both confirms and challenges aspects of received wisdom about our country and our firearms.

Like the people within, immigrant detention centers are often invisible as well. Photos and drawings of these places are rarely public; access is even more limited. Canada has three designated immigrant prisons, and it also rents beds in government-run prisons to house over one-third of its detainees. Undocumented: The Architecture of Migrant Detention begins to strip away at this invisibility.

Here is a necessary addition to the literature on FBI harassment of Americans and on U.S. social movements over the last century.