Portside

This new book by a retired Army colonel and emeritus professor of history at Boston University tells the story of decades of US policy failures in the Middle East.

Based on personal stories of Abraham Lincoln Battalion survivors, Hochschild writes of their courage in an unequal contest where the Fascists had the unstinting support of German and Italian governments while the Democracies embargoed all arms to the Spanish government, an alliance of centrist and leftist parties-this while the Soviets worked to tamp down popular land and factory seizures for fear of inciting those capitalist Democracies to outrightly side with the Right

John Dewey's classic has had a profound impact on how progressives and others think about education. In this review, Catherine R. Stimpson evaluates this landmark book of educational theory and finds that it has a lot to tell us about social life outside the classroom as well.

While Camus was a vocal advocate of Arab rights since the 1930s, his fictional universe seemed blind to their existence. . In 1957 Albert Camus uttered a widely misquoted criticism of terrorism. What he meant to say, what he in fact said, is that a policy of killing innocent civilians - whether his own mother or the mother of his adversary - is not properly named "justice."

In this review, Jill Leovy looks at two new studies of contemporary US poverty.

Writer and activist Sarah Schulman, whose new novel, The Cosmopolitans, tackles race and ageing, explains focus on LGBT lives and how gentrification isn't as simple as it seems. The Cosmopolitans is a beautifully written, page-turning novel about friendship, love, and revenge set in the disappeared world of 1950s New York.

This recently unearthed text portrays the life of a 19th Century African American who spent much of his life in prison. Joy James guides us through this "startling," yet "instructive" book.

Reading Thomas Frank's new book, Listen, Liberal, or What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?, I was reminded of the snapshot that Oxfam offered us early this year: 62 billionaires now have more wealth than the bottom 50% of the global population, while the richest 1% own more than the other 99% combined...In 2010, it took 388 of the super-rich to equal the holdings of that bottom 50%. At this rate...by 2030, just the top 10 billionaires might do the trick. [*]

Most university teachers in the United States are part time, contingent employees. Their job title of "adjunct" is added to term designating academic rank (lecturer, assistant professor), but carries no job rights, benefits, or expectation of continued employment beyond the present semester. Most full time "academic" jobs are now held by administrators. How did we get here? Benjamin Ginsberg considers these questions, as Matthew Abraham explains.

It is striking how many Catholic organisations seem to do a whole range of lucrative things they were never set up to do, while still enjoying tax exemption as religious institutions. On closing these books many readers will feel that the only way out of the Vatican impasse would be to wind up the territory's anomalous statehood, hand it over to the Italian government and free the Church and above all Pope Francis to get on with their Christian mission. Right...