David Stasavage, Public Debt and the Birth of the Democratic State: France and Great Britain, 1688-1789. xii + 210 pp. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Tables, figures, notes, appendix, bibliography, and index. $60.00 U.S. (cl). ISBN 0-521-80967-3. In 1989, Douglass North and Barry Weingast published an article in the Journal of […]
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Monthly Review Magazine
Offshore Oil Drilling and Hurricane Risks
It’s time to stop blaming BP — alone. At least four other oil companies hired the same firm to write their plans for handling spills in the Gulf of Mexico. They ended up with nearly identical plans, complete with thoughtful concern about impacts on walruses. The CEO of ExxonMobil called it “unfortunate” and “embarrassing” that […]
SEIU Buys Its Own Version of History
In the last five years, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has gone from being a media darling to generating more bad press for itself than any other labor organization. Some of SEIU’s negative publicity is a product of right-wing union bashing. But a huge amount is self-inflicted — the result of conflicts with other […]
The Chair Not Taken
A tale of politicians, seats, and struggles in a parliament far, far away. . . . Script, Design, and Animation by Zach Cohen. This video is his final project at the Shenkar School of Engineering and Design in Israel. Click here to view other works by Cohen. | Print
Egypt under Emergency Law
Pharaoh Mubarak, resting himself on the emergency law, says: “No, not enough.” The Egyptian people, oppressed by the burden of the emergency law,” says: “Enough.” Fahd Bahady is a Syrian cartoonist. This cartoon was published in his blog on 4 July 2010; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes. The text above is an […]
Gulf Arab Support for Attacking Iran: The Strange Case of the UAE
The Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to the United States, Yousef Al-Otaiba, is in the news for comments he made yesterday at the Aspen Ideas Festival — comments in which he apparently expressed some measure of support for a U.S. military attack on Iranian nuclear targets. We have known Yousef since before his […]
The Boss, the Union, and the Government
The boss commits a violent foul play against the union. See which side the government red cards. Eneko Las Heras, born in Caracas in 1963, is a cartoonist based in Spain. This cartoon was published on his blog . . . Y sin embargo se mueve on 14 June 2009. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi […]
Egyptian Police: To Serve the People
Abdallah Ahmed is an artist based in Cairo, Egypt. He blogs at . This cartoon was published in his blog on 15 June 2010 under a Creative Commons license. Among the latest victims of police brutality in Egypt is Khaled Said, a 28-year-old man from Alexandria. The murder of Khaled Said sparked major protests in […]
Be Nice to America. Or We’ll Bring Democracy to Your Country!
Professor: The good news, class, is that the secret to understanding our country’s foreign policy is that there is no secret. You simply have to understand that America strives to dominate the world for both economic and ideological reasons. Once you understand that, much of the confusion, contradiction, and ambiguity surrounding our policy fades […]
Labor Talks Sense About Immigration. What Comes Next?
Something unusual happened on June 18: an important figure on the U.S. political scene spoke sensibly and realistically about immigration. The occasion was a speech at the City Club of Cleveland, and the speaker was AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka. The news wasn’t that labor was backing a rational, equitable reform of U.S. immigration laws; the […]
Iran, Israel, and Air Defense: What, Exactly, Is the “Threat”?
A few days ago, the Wall Street Journal reported that Iran had sent Syria a “sophisticated radar system that could threaten Israel’s ability to launch a surprise attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities.” The story cited reporting from “two Israeli officials, two U.S. officials and a Western intelligence source,” and was “confirmed . . . by […]
A Nuclear Revival?
Justin Pemberton, dir. The Nuclear Comeback. DVD. New York: Icarus Films, 2007. 53 minutes. Are we on the brink of a nuclear revival? Should we be? The Nuclear Comeback, an absorbing documentary video, is titled declaratively but sprinkles question marks. The Nuclear Comeback embarks on a tour of some of the high and low […]
The Political Economy of Israel’s Occupation
Shir Hever and Paul Jay
Paul Jay: So, in talking to people in Israel, one thing I hear constantly is the fight here is about national identity, it’s about the defense of the Jewish state. I don’t hear very much about economics of Israel or the economics of occupation. So how does national identity relate to the economics here? […]
Toronto G20: Remembering Politics, Celebrating Activism
As news of the G20’s Toronto Summit recedes from the headlines, which memories shall prevail? The answer to this question will not only shape official decisions, such as whether allegations of police brutality are seriously investigated, but may also have a profound impact on the political sensibilities of a generation of Canadians. Given the constant […]
Nuclear Power: Implications of Loan Guarantees for Reactors with Foreign Control and Foreign Jobs
As the United States government does what it can to halt Iran’s nuclear program, it may be suspected that it is seeking to build up its own nuclear industry, denying Iran the capacity to develop its own technology while pressuring it to open itself up for US technological export and to become dependent on […]
Warning
To the EU regarding the economic crisis: Marx warned you about it a long time ago! Tomás Rafael Rodríguez Zayas (Tomy) is a Cuban cartoonist. This cartoon was published in Cambios en Cuba on 4 July 2010. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | Print
Après moi, le déluge: War, Debt, and Revolution
Michael Sonenscher, Before the Deluge: Public Debt, Inequality, and the Intellectual Origins of the French Revolution. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007. x + 415 pp. Notes, bibliography, and index. $39.95 U.S. ISBN-13: 978-0-691-12499-5 (hb). The subtitle of Michael Sonenscher’s book calls to mind at least two different, and separate, historical problems. First, […]
Interview with Dissident Israeli Intellectual Michel Warschawski: “Obama’s Priority Is Iran”
Israeli intellectual Michel Warschawski said yesterday, at the European Social Forum in Istanbul, that he is certain that US President Barack Obama’s priority is a war against Iran. Warschawski was taking part in a seminar on how the international Palestine solidarity movement can challenge Israeli impunity. Warschawski, founder of the Alternative Information Center in […]
The Crises of Capitalism
“The thesis . . . is that in many ways the form of the current crisis is dictated very much by the way we came out of the last one.” — David Harvey, 26 April 2010 David Harvey is a Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York, Director of the Center for Place, […]
Early Modern Venetian-Ottoman Relations and the Mediterranean World
Eric R. Dursteler. Venetians in Constantinople: Nation, Identity, and Coexistence in the Early Modern Mediterranean. The Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science Series. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006. Maps, illustrations. 312 pp. $50.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8018-8324-8. Eric R. Dursteler’s work, which examines Venetian-Ottoman coexistence in the late sixteenth and early […]
