Monthly Review Press

Digging up a review of Ian Angus’ “Facing the Anthropocene,” from the Journal of Anthropological Research

Digging up a review of Ian Angus’ “Facing the Anthropocene,” from the Journal of Anthropological Research

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....

Author Jayati Ghosh on Vaccine Apartheid (Watch: Democracy Now!)

Author Jayati Ghosh on Vaccine Apartheid (Watch: Democracy Now!)

February 20, 2024

"...this is the problem that has actually plagued the entire attitude to vaccine development and production in this pandemic. A few companies have got the rights, and they are holding onto those rights, and they are only producing themselves. They must share this knowledge, and they must allow other producers, because that’s the only way we’re going to confront the crisis..."

“The Return of Nature” is a Resource for Scientific Radicals (Science for the People)

“The Return of Nature” is a Resource for Scientific Radicals (Science for the People)

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..."

Gerald Horne: Against Left-Wing White Nationalism (Organizing Upgrade)

Gerald Horne: Against Left-Wing White Nationalism (Organizing Upgrade)

February 20, 2024

How and why the U.S. left has tailed the ruling class on such a bedrock matter as conceptualizing white supremacy soars far beyond the confines of this brief response.....What does this mean for today?  It means rejecting the new Cold War against Russians and Chinese and, instead, forging alliances with both. It means linking demands for reparations nationally with likeminded struggles in the Caribbean and Africa.  It means realizing that the uncanny ability of some on the U.S. left to hand rhetorical weapons to the right to bash the oppressed – from “political correctness” to “cancel culture” – is hardly a coincidence or accident but simply another expression of a “cross-class alliance” that has propped up settler colonialism from its inception.....

Gerald Horne makes you think – about the lie of the docile subject, from America to Palestine (Watch: Conscious Mindset)

Gerald Horne makes you think – about the lie of the docile subject, from America to Palestine (Watch: Conscious Mindset)

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.

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