I read this gorgeous, furious book while teaching the first half of the U. S. history survey: 1607–1877….In this book as well as its recent antecedent, ‘The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy and Capitalism in 17th Century North America and the Caribbean,’ Horne turns to examine the earlier foundations of empire and racial capitalism. Unlike much of his other work, these books are primarily secondary-source–driven. But Horne is that historian, as skilled in the pyrotechnics of historiographical revision as he is at archival spelunking. | more…
In a discussion of the new book, “Extraordinary Threat: The U.S. Empire, the Media and Twenty Years of Coup Attempts Against Venezuel,” Justin Podur clarifies: What they’re doing in Colombia is what they say is happening in Venezuela…” | more…
This thesis was provocative for several reasons, but perhaps most of all because it implied that once the material roots of slavery had been ripped up, the modern world would finally witness the progressive erosion of anti-Black politics and culture… | more…
Value Chains thoroughly and powerfully critiques modern-day forms of capitalism by bringing back to the table the much-needed analytical lens of imperialism to show the continuities of unevenness, an unequal world economic system, and the dominance of powerful corporations and nations over other regions, places, economies, labour and resources. | more…
It isn’t all black and white, of course. “Mastery over nature” doesn’t by definition preclude environmental conservation, nor does indigeneity bar overexploitation. But neither is the resulting system a mush of gray. For capitalists themselves cast the operative distinctions here as a matter of celebrated principle. | more…
“Dr. Horne, you’re from Saint Louis, and your younger brother is a Jazz musician and…I was wondering if you could paint the picture of when jazz first entered your world and psyche.” | more…
Born in a Jim Crow hospital. Attended racially segregated “apartheid schools.” Grew up in the Mill Creek Valley neighborhood of St. Louis, an area similar to Tulsa’s Black Wall Street and home to several prominent Black businesses that were erased forever by racially motivated construction projects… | more…
“As an epidemiologist, you’re supposed to want to put yourself out of business,” Wallace said. “Everyone has bills to pay; I understand that. But the extent to which your corruption might lead to a pathogen that could kill a billion people—that’s where my line is”….“You can intellectually understand something but still not assimilate the oncoming damage,” he told me later, as he recalled the “sour vindication” of having his worst fears come true. “So there’s an aspect of rage, and an arrival at an understanding.” | more…
For Bellamy Foster and Clark, embracing the Good Anthropocene is simply a failure to appreciate the depth of the social change required… | more…
Zhun Xu, author of “From Commune to Capitalism: How China’s Peasants Lost Collective Farming and Gained Urban Poverty,” spoke alongside Chris Matlhako, Elias Khalil Jabbour, and Bikrum Gill on a panel titled, “Political Economies of Chinese Socialism.” | more…
Chavez inherited an impoverished country with a thin, glittering layer of affluence at the top. To the horror of Washington and Venezuelan plutocrats, he promptly began redistributing wealth to the poor… | more…
