Who owns this ‘country’?
- Issue:
- Vol. 75, No. 11 (April 2024)
April 1, 2024
A new poem by Marge Piercy.
Article Subjects and Geography: Culture
Do It Yourself, Brother: Cultural Autonomy and the New Thing
- Issue:
- Vol. 75, No. 10 (March 2024)
March 1, 2024
Christian Noakes tells the story of the struggle to liberate jazz from the exploitative, white-controlled music industry in 1950s and beyond. Recounting the seminal events of the movement and backlash from white civil society, Noakes reveals a legacy of Black cultural autonomy and resistance led by such jazz legends as Charles Mingus, Max Roach, Eric Dolphy, Bill Dixon, and others.
Eleven Theses on Music
- Issue:
- Vol. 75, No. 10 (March 2024)
March 1, 2024
This lyrical vignette from the recently departed Paul Burkett is the author's final, posthumously published piece for Monthly Review. In it, the eminent ecological economist and jazz musician muses on the nature of creativity, technology, and the corporatization of music—and the struggle to decommodify it, freeing musicians and their craft from the confines of capitalism.
Palestine, Oh, Palestine!
January 1, 2024
In this review of Linda Dittmar's Tracing Homelands, Paul Buhle writes, "History may yet hold hope when hope is otherwise lacking when we reject the stalemate that only leads to despair."
Notes from the Editors, November 2023
November 1, 2023
In 2022, China released its "Global Civilization Initiative," a document enumerating China's commitment to fostering diversity, equality, and cultural exchange. The editors analyze how the U.S. foreign policy community and media jumped to attack the initiative in the interest of defending U.S. imperial strategy around the globe.
‘Ballad of an American’: The Illustrious Life of Paul Robeson, Newly Illustrated
November 1, 2023
Michael Yates reviews Ballad of an American, a newly released graphic biography of Black actor, singer, and activist Paul Robeson. The book gives an uncompromising look at a complicated, passionate man, wholly dedicated to the cause of liberation.
Relative Pauperization and Involution in Contemporary China: A Survey of Jingzhou City
October 1, 2023
There is a growing sense in China, Alex Witherspoon, Amir Khan, and Yu Zhou write, that the timeworn methods of social advancement are yielding diminishing returns. Using an original survey of 301 individuals in Jingzhou City, the authors lay bare the roots of this widespread feeling of involution.
A Nation of Guns
October 1, 2023
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz reviews Bloodbath Nation, a poignant exploration of the painful, studiously ignored truths about gun culture in the U.S. To grapple with the epidemic of gun violence, she writes, requires confronting deeper truths about white supremacy, settler-colonialism, and the U.S. history of enslavement.
