Portside

Writer, poet, college teacher, political activist, peace agitator and feminist,Grace Paley was a well-known and highly respected commodity to those of us active in left protest during the 1960 and much later. This new collection of her writings should remind us of what we justifiably admired most, not just her talent as a writer but her commitment to the struggle and the long haul.

The interviewer doesn't exaggerate in ranking W.E.B Du Bois as the 20th century's pre-eminent African-American author and thinker, crediting his founding and stewardship of the NAACP's The Crisis with granting him not just an agenda-setting role in civil-rights history but also international influence. Before going into detail with the biographer, he also praises Mullen for a work that is a timely introduction to this impressive and somewhat imposing figure.

A look at the English Revolution's first decade, where radicals forced parliamentary leaders to complete the revolt against the monarchy, creating a some two decades-long republic through a genuine social revolution. The book's author is credited with bringing an activist's perspective to it and situating the uprising and the corresponding invention of the pamphlet as the basis for English popular sovereignty, despite the Glorious Revolution's return to a monarchy later.

Based on personal stories of Abraham Lincoln Battalion survivors, Hochschild writes of their courage in an unequal contest where the Fascists had the unstinting support of German and Italian governments while the Democracies embargoed all arms to the Spanish government, an alliance of centrist and leftist parties-this while the Soviets worked to tamp down popular land and factory seizures for fear of inciting those capitalist Democracies to outrightly side with the Right