February 20, 2024
The Return of Nature is a genealogy of ecological thinking. The word ‘ecology’ was not in common usage until the twentieth century, leading many to consider ecological thinking a fairly recent development. However, in this impressive volume, John Bellamy Foster convincingly identifies a materialist ecological sensibility within works dating back a century prior to ecology’s popularization..."
February 20, 2024
In this moment of what a philologist or scholar of poetry might call correctio, Michael performs the self-reflexive, intertextual move of being in conversation with his own text as a form of revision....
February 20, 2024
"....activists ought to be clear-eyed about the limitations of regulatory interventions. While there is certainly utility in digital media and tech reform, antitrust legislation and similar policy courses are insufficient for large-scale social transformations that characterize Marxist aspirations..."
February 20, 2024
One main thread runs through every aspect of every story: Stories of Black rebellion and resistance. When Horne tells of Texas' efforts to secede and the impact of the arsons of 1860, allegedly set by slaves, he comments, "Our enemies are the ones who put out the rumor that we're docile, because they want us to be docile today." That's fallacious, he says. "Arsons were one of our favorite tools. Arson, poisonings, insurrections, murders." And in fact, during the Madison administration, Africans actually joined the British in torching the White House in 1814, sending James and Dolly fleeing.
February 20, 2024
Angus recounts the history of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). First developed in the late 1920s, by 1970 more than 750,000 tons of CFCs had been pumped into the earth’s atmosphere. In the mid-1970s, scientists began to discover the link between CFCs and ozone depletion, and the chemical industry went into full denial mode, arguing that scientists’ arguments were 'just theories'....As it turns out, the British Antarctic Survey had been measuring ozone levels since 1957....
February 20, 2024
Recall "The Hanoi Hilton,” where captured U.S. soldiers were held during the war in Vietnam? If you do recall, no doubt, you're recalling the Official Story. So what really happened? Watch!
February 20, 2024
"Donnelly gives a short account of the origins of neoliberal imperialism, which emerged in the 1970s as a result of three challenges to the post–World War II global economic order: 1) the decline in the value of the U. S. dollar; 2) economic stagnation and a falling rate of pro t in the rich countries; and 3) the Third World “debt crisis”. Donnelly’s retelling of this story is remarkably concise and coherent; captured in a mere 30 pages, it is perhaps one of the best short overviews of the emergence of neoliberal global capitalism that I have read...."
February 20, 2024
"'Why do we go back?' she asked sardonically, 'because they go back,' the pro-war hawks and military establishment. The 'patriarchy,' as she put it, ruminates the defeat in Vietnam like a bad sandwich growling in its stomach through a night that will not end. The defeat in Vietnam struck at a pillar of American manhood. Vietnam veterans would sometimes be chided by older veterans: they had won their war; Vietnam veterans had lost—what kind of men were they?"
February 20, 2024
"The bargain was that if they worked together, they could expropriate the land from the Native Americans and accomplish what came to be called the American Dream, and with a little luck and a lot of pluck, they could then somehow down the road gain free labor from enslaved Africans, and so there was a sort of corrupt bargain at the onset of what is now the United States of America...And still to this very day, you have this kind of class collaboration between some of the ninety-nine percent and some of the one percent. How else can you explain how and why a faux billionaire, Donald J. Trump in November 2020, received almost seventy-five million votes?"
February 20, 2024
"I thought to myself, 'I've never heard any of this really,' and I (came of age during) the anti-war movement, I'm a historian of this time period." If you think you've heard enough about the Vietnam War, just wait.
