Information is power. Our mission at Portside is to seek out and to provide information that empowers you -- that empowers the left. Every day we search hundreds of sources to connect you with the most interesting, striking and useful material. Just once a year we appeal to you to contribute to make it possible to continue this work. Please help.

 

Archives

For posts before June 2012, please follow these links to our archives.

Callie Barr’s Black Bottom

Malcolm Tariq Georgia Review
The identity of an African American woman Callie, who was William Faulkner’s maid, is seen from different perspectives in Malcolm Tariq’s poem.

The Radical Atmosphere of the Red Clyde

Jean McNicol London Review of Books
Three new books tell the tale of Glasgow’s radical Clydeside, when militant shop stewards and the longshore community during and post World War 1 rose up against war and attacks by capital, fighting for labor dignity and a fair society for all.

A Howl of Protest about Plight of the Poor

Emma Brockes The Guardian
Poverty means bad jobs, bad credit and bad housing – but even worse is the assumption you aren't trying hard enough, as Tirado's angry, coruscating memoir proves.

Little Women for the Lean-In Generation

Eileen Jones Jacobin
With its starchy girl-power message and Meryl Streepish prestige, Little Women is bound to be a hot contender for critics’ awards, Oscars, and Golden Globes. But don’t be fooled: it’s a bad movie.

Your Last Opportunity: Let's Make Waves Together

Portside
Because of Portside, a lot of people who are determined to make their own history will have the tools to do it -- the emotional sustenance, the information, the analysis, the connections -- to meet the extraordinary situation we all confront.

The Mandalorian Doesn’t Care About Diapers

Kathryn VanArendonk Vulture
The Mandalorian is uninterested in diapers, and so Mando gets to be a very particular image of fatherhood: the guy who doesn’t have to sweat the small stuff. It’s wish fulfillment, a fantasy of parenting stripped of all detail and specificity.

Centering

Lynne Knight Pedestal
The Canadian poet Lynne Knight adds a feminist/ecological turn to Copernicus’s classical paradigm shift about the earth circling the sun.

Whose Liberalism? Critiquing The Economist

Ben Jackson Boston Review
With its elite decision-makers and opinion-formers—and over 1.5 million copies sold per week—The Economist has exerted tremendous influence on popular liberal discourse for more than a century. The book author finds its reputation undeserved.

The Uninhabitable Earth

Dook Snyder The Berkshire Edge
“It is worse, much worse, than you think," writes the author of this study. "The slowness of climate change is a fairy tale, perhaps as pernicious as the one that says it isn’t happening at all.”