Skip to main content

Economica

Tony Hoagland Verse Daily
Poet Tony Hoagland skims the skin of everyday capitalism for the rich and the poor.

Letters from Langston: From the Harlem Renaissance to the Red Scare and Beyond

JJ Johnson Portside
"Letters from Langston: From the Harlem Renaissance to the Red Scare and Beyond" is both a compilation of an intriguing exchange of letters among five heroic African Americans and a loving tribute to the letter writers from the daughters of four of the writers: Evelyn Louise Crawford and MaryLouise Patterson.

Goodbye New Deal, hello Wall Street

Adam Barnett Prospect
In this new book, Thomas Frank offers an analysis of today's Democratic Party that should serve as a cautionary tale for its supporters in this election year. Writing from the United Kingdom, Adam Barnett offers an appraisal of Frank's findings.

And Counting

Peter Neil Carroll Portside
On February 28 2016, Delmer Berg of northern California died. He was last known veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade--the 2800 American volunteers who fought in the Spanish Civil War. Here is a tribute for them all.

Matthew Desmond's `Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City'

Barbara Ehrenreich New York Times Book Review
Matthew Desmond is an academic who teaches at Harvard - a sociologist or, you could say, an ethnographer. But I would like to claim him as a journalist, and one who has set a new standard for reporting on poverty. In Milwaukee, he moved into a trailer park and then to a rooming house on the -poverty-stricken North Side and diligently took notes on the lives of people who pay 70 to 80 percent of their incomes for homes that are unfit for human habitation.

Dark Money The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right

Greg Waldmann Open Letters Monthly
One of the cornerstones of the campaign Senator Bernie Sanders is waging for the presidency is his opposition to our corrupt campaign finance laws. He often names the Koch brothers as a prime exhibit of the dangers of unregulated big money in politics, and for good reason. In her new book, Jane Mayer traces how the Koch brothers are trying to buy our politics. Greg Waldmann introduces us to what Mayer has found.