Portside

Hiroshima since August 6 1945 lives as a beginning and an end an existential dilemma. California poet Jeffrey Thomas Leong brings us to question: what if/not?

Liberal opinion holds that the Vietnam War was a mistake. The right continues to see it as a noble cause. Author Michael Uhl calls the slaughter in Vietnam planned and deliberate, saying that the United States would not tolerate then or now efforts by people in the Global South to escape the imperialist trap. Uhl writes as a participant, first as an intelligence officer and then as an historian, to paint a merciless and highly detailed picture of US policy at its rawest.

In this novel, Whitehead reimagines both slavery and the resistance to it.

Perhaps the Dump Star Wars story could be described as “silly.” But to deny the politics of Star Wars is to throw the franchise’s rich history under a bus the size of an Imperial cruiser. Star Wars may not overflow with civics metaphors in the fashion of “Star Trek,” but the sci-fi films did not exist in a political void.

“Good Girls Revolt” resisted the militant bra-burning feminist stereotype, instead depicting ambitious young women from a range of backgrounds — a black lawyer, a blond princess, a mousy aspiring novelist — each inspired to take action for unique reasons. It made feminism seem like an endeavor that was not only vital, but thrilling — and not just because of the newfound sexual freedom.

"Complete this report as fully as possible to the best/of your recollection. Do not consult video evidence." So the Carolina poet Dan Albergotti introduces the absurdities and illogic of bureaucratic obscurity that allows a person to avoid responsibility for discharging a deadly weapon.

John Rees, author of The Leveller Revolution: Radical Political Organization in England 1640-1650, (Verso, 2016; reviewed in Portside Culture, November 30, 2016) weighs in with his recommendations about some of the best fiction in English dealing with radical movements and the revolutionary experience.

Acclaimed Native American novelist Erdrich's fifteenth novel is a "multigenerational tale," writes reviewer Round, that "stretches across two centuries of life on the Northern Plains."

Bravo's film was commissioned by Channel 4 in Britain, and won the Distinguished Achievement for Excellence in Documentary Filmmaking from the Urbanworld Film Festival in New York, and played the Toronto International Film Festival to sold-out crowds despite the fact that it opened three days after the September 11th attacks. It has played in arthouses throughout the U.S. It and several other films about Castro, can now be viewed on YouTube and are also listed below.

The Cosmopolitan Chicken Project explores ideas of genetic diversity via an ongoing global effort to crossbreed the chickens of the world.