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.

The Missing Malcolm X

Garrett Felber Boston Review
Our understanding of Malcolm X is inextricably linked to his autobiography, but newly discovered materials force us to reexamine his legacy.

The War Before the War

David Holahan The Christian Science Monitor
The role of the enslaved in the political crisis that led to the Civil War is not as well known as it should be, but this volume adds to our knowledge on this topic.

‘Roma’ Review: Alfonso Cuaron Makes His Masterpiece

Peter Travers The Rolling Stone
Oscar-winner, Alfonso Cuaron, goes into the past and pays tribute to the women who helped raise him. Cuarón has done more than break through walls of language, culture and class to craft the best movie of the year.

In U.S. Media, Israel Is Untouchable

Gideon Levy Haaretz
You can attack the Palestinians in America uninterrupted, call to expel them and deny their existence. Just don’t dare say a bad word about Israel, the holy of holies.

Contempt of Court

Anita Pulier Cultural Weekly
We speak often in generalities of social justice, but California poet (and ex-lawyer) Anita Pulier gets down to the nitty-gritty in this small courtroom drama.

The Capital's Great National Circus

Eric Foner London Review of Books
Think today's lack of congressional comity is bizarre? It's nothing (or not yet something) compared to the physical violence prevalent on the floor of the House and Senate in the period leading up to the Civil War.

Brown

L. Ali Khan New York Journal of Books
A new collection by the director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and poetry editor of The New Yorker consists of poems that, says this reviewer, "fit the bill of quantum poetry."

‘Las Sandinistas!’: A Revolution Remembered

Mark Read The Indypendent
Las Sandinistas, a new feature-length documentary film that examines the Nicaraguan revolution of the 1980’s, arrives in theaters at a critical political juncture in which crises in Central America are once again center stage.