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Against all odds, 122 countries agreed in July to ban nuclear weapons. At the heart of the United Nations treaty is an explicit ethical goal: to protect peoples of the world from the humanitarian catastrophe that would ensue if nuclear weapons were employed. Once 50 states ratify the treaty, it will enter into international law. The United States, the only country to use nuclear weapons, dropped the first atomic bomb on Aug. 6, 1945 at Hiroshima, and Aug. 9 on Nagasaki.

On Friday, a group of members of Congress published a letter opposing the threatened sanctions. It began, “We write to express our deep alarm regarding the escalating political, economic and social crisis in Venezuela and urge you to work with our regional partners to help prevent a civil war. We strongly recommend that you support negotiations mediated by respected external actors such as Pope Francis, who enjoys credibility with broad segments of Venezuela’s people.

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Phillips Seafood is a Baltimore-based company famous for its crabs. Global and US unions want to make it infamous for its treatment of low-paid women workers. Phillips moved its Indonesian production from urban to rural mini-plants in order to inhibit access to labor law protections and unionization efforts. Closer to home, the company is a major opponent of attempts to raise the minimum wage.

On the centennial of the Russian Revolution, John Reed's first-hand look at the uprising of workers, peasants, soldiers and sailors is fit reading about a mass movement that overthrew the old aristocracy and then the bourgeois class itself. An exposition on ordinary people making history for themselves, the book is a gripping account of events in Petrograd, when Lenin and the Bolsheviks lead the various workers councils in finally seizing state power.

An investment group led by former Chicago alderman and businessman Edwin Eisendrath and the Chicago Federation of Labor recently pulled off an unusual feat when it acquired the Chicago Sun-Times. The purchase is a return to labor’s long tradition in fostering a broader public sphere.

In Esquire's July 1968 issue, published just after the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., the magazine talked to James Baldwin about the state of race relations in the country. On what would be the author's 93rd birthday, we've republished the interview in full—and his words are incredibly relevant today.

There’s little comedy in the ways in which President Trump’s recent law-enforcement speech reflected his Administration’s broader priorities when it comes to policing.

This new book, says Peter E. Gordon, argues that "ever since the fall of communism, a culture of defeat has characterized the left’s understanding of political history and theoretical critique." Gordon guides us through the intricacies of the case author Enzo Traverso makes in this volume.

Today, segregation in America looks different than it did a generation ago. Neighborhood-level diversity is increasingly common and, correspondingly, that all-white neighborhoods aren’t as prevalent. However, even in diverse neighborhoods, divisions of race and class still exert their power. Most social institutions, churches, recreations centers, restaurants, barber shops and hair shops, schools, and civic associations remain segregated.