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.

From Academia to Art School: An 'Old Black Woman' Starts Anew

Paul Von Blum Truthdig
Renowned social historian and scholar Nell Painter went back to school to study art after retiring from her tenured professorship. This book is the story of how she found herself anew, and what the search can teach the rest of us.

The Fake That’s Real

By Mary Elise Bailey
Poet Mary Elise Bailey has studied and re-studied the rhetoric of 2016 presidential shopping. This selection is part of a longer work, Duct Tape.

Bob Woodward’s Dragnet Descends on Donald Trump

Lloyd Green The Guardian
Woodward, one of the two Washington Post city reporters who broke the Watergate story that led to bringing down a president has written another sober, must-read dissection of corruption and rot at the White House.

John Rawls, Socialist?

Ed Quish Jacobin
The author of this book, writes reviewer Quish, "makes a powerful case for a 'socialist constitutionalism' that deserves a place in contemporary debates on the Left."

Before You Try to Decolonize Your Diet, Read This

Chelsey Luger Yes Magazine
The intensification of corn impacted indigenous health, for better and for worse. Increased corn consumption often meant fewer micronutrients as corn replaced other foods in their diet.
Decolonizing the Diet: Nutrition, Immunity, and the Warning From Early America explores how the forces of nutrition, immunity, environmental change, disease, settler colonialism, and other factors have influenced the health of Native Americans.