Turkey has its own vision on the issues of international security. On Iran, the Middle East, and nuclear proliferation, it has made itself the voice of the Muslim opinion which sees Israel as the chief troublemaker. A member of the NATO and candidate for the European Union, led since 2002 by the “moderate Islamists” […]
Geography Archives: France
Contesting the French Revolution
Paul R. Hanson, Contesting the French Revolution. Malden, MA and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. xii + 229 pp. Bibliography and index. $89.95 U.S. (cl). ISBN 978-1-4051-6083-4; $34.95 U.S. (pb). ISBN 978-1-4051-6084-1. When Blackwell published a volume on the French Revolution in its Essential Readings in History series in 2001, Ronald Schechter began his introduction to […]
“Israeli Nation” vs. “Jewish State”
A group of Jews and Arabs are fighting in the Israeli courts to be recognized as “Israelis,” a nationality currently denied them, in a case that officials fear may threaten the country’s self-declared status as a Jewish state. Israel refused to recognize an Israeli nationality at the country’s establishment in 1948, making an unusual distinction […]
A Difficult Love Affair? On the Relation between Marxism and Theology
Abstract: From the moment Marx and Engels became involved with the League of the Just, Marxism has always had a long and often difficult relation with theology and the Bible. Some of the leading figures of the twentieth century were no exception — Althusser, Adorno, Gramsci, Lefebvre, Eagleton are just a few. And in our […]
“Progressive Exit” from the Eurozone
The crisis facing the eurozone looks at first sight as German efficiency clashing with Portuguese, Irish, Greek and Spanish sloppiness. But in many respects Germany has performed worse than the “peripheral” countries in the last decade. The largest economy of the eurozone has been marked by slow growth, poor domestic demand, weak investment, high unemployment, […]
Ambivalent Feminism: Romantic Socialism, Gender, and the Individual
Naomi Andrews, Socialism’s Muse: Gender in the Intellectual Landscape of French Romantic Socialism, Lanhan, Md.: Lexington Books, 2006. 210 pp. $66.00 (hb). ISBN 10-0739-108-441. In Socialism’s Muse: Gender in the Intellectual Landscape of French Romantic Socialism, Naomi Andrews brings her readers into a complex conversation that touches on individualism and egoism, on the nature […]
From Iraq to Iran: Is London Again “Helping” Washington Pursue Regime Change in the Middle East?
There are two countries in the world which are routinely described by American politicians across the political spectrum as having a “special relationship” with the United States — Israel and the United Kingdom. We have all grown more familiar than we probably like to acknowledge with Israel using its channels to Capitol Hill and in […]
A Cloward-Piven Strategy for Single Payer?
With the passage in the House of the Obama administration’s health care reform bill, it would seem at first glance that the movement for national, single-payer health insurance has been seriously derailed. After all, if all of the hype and adulation surrounding the bill’s passage is to be believed, the fight for universal health care […]
A Postsecular World Society? On the Philosophical Significance of Postsecular Consciousness and the Multicultural World Society
EM: Over the last couple of years you have been working on the question of religion from a series of perspectives: philosophical, political, sociological, moral, and cognitive. In your Yale lectures from the fall of 2008, you approached the challenge of the vitality and renewal of religion in world society in terms of the […]
American Police Training and Political Violence: From the Philippines Conquest to the Killing Fields of Afghanistan and Iraq
“In the police you see the dirty work of Empire at close quarters. The wretched prisoners huddling in stinking cages of the lock-ups, the grey cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been flogged with bamboos.” –George Orwell, Shooting An Elephant and Other Essays “. . . the […]
French Regional Elections 2010
The Guide to the Regional Elections First Round Second Round Le Monde reports: “The Left obtained 59% of the votes in six metropolitan regions where it dueled with the Right, according to TNS-Sofres/Logica. In 12 regions where there were triangle races joined by the National Front, the Socialist Party and its allies scored 49%, against […]
Excessive Centralization Creates Inefficiency and Prevents Authentic Popular Protagonism
1. There Is No Popular Protagonism without Decentralization Popular protagonism becomes a mere slogan if people do not have the opportunity to make their opinions known and take decisions in areas where they participate: (geographic spaces, workplaces, educational establishments, interest groups). If the central state decides everything, there is no room for local initiatives and […]
Interviews with Strikers in Athens, Greece
Athens, Greece, 11.03.10. — Tens of thousands of trade unionists and anti-capitalists demonstrated during a nationwide strike against the cash-strapped government’s austerity measures. People explain why the have taken to the streets. “Today’s 24-hour general strike was called by GSEE and ADEDY (private and public sector unions). They are demanding that working people not […]
France: Multiple Voter Punishments
“It’s necessary to campaign on my record,” Nicolas Sarkozy had told UMP leaders in the regional elections, before prudently beating a retreat when polls revealed the darkening sky for the party. Despite the same old cliché repeated by UMP spokespeople according to the dictate of the Élysée, the fact remains that voters clearly rejected […]
Greece: This Is Just the Beginning!
The austerity measures imposed on Greek workers to reduce the deficits are nothing but a prelude of what may happen to the other European countries. The Greek crisis demonstrates the divisions in the ruling class on the strategies to adopt. For the second time since December 2008, Greece is at the heart of politics […]
An “Economic Guernica” for Greece
A street of Guernica after the fascist bombardment of 26 April 1937 Greece faces a veritable economic Guernica, a massacre, in the face of which the European Left shows an unforgivable passivity. What is imposed on Athens is meant as an example, to strike terror into Spain, Portugal, and even Italy. But even France, […]
Violence and Revolution
Jean-Clément Martin, Violence et Révolution: Essai sur la naissance d’un mythe national. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2006. 339 pp. Bibliography and index. 23.00 Euros (pb). ISBN 2-02-043842-9. This work subtitles itself an “essay on the birth of a national myth”. The “myth” in question, as the first pages of the Introduction make clear, is […]
Criminal Courts under Revolution and Empire
Robert Allen, Les Tribunaux criminels sous la Révolution et l’Empire, 1792-1811. Collection « Histoire » Translated by James Steven Bryant (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2005) 318 pp. 22€ ISBN 2-7535-00095-9. At the end of the Old Regime, the judicial system of the kingdom stood accused of all manner of barbarities and atrocities — […]
Fragile Europe of the Single Currency
There is now a general crisis in Europe without a visible or credible way out. It is clearly evidenced by the continuous flare-up of hotspots of tension: from Greece to the Iberian Peninsula and back, and then onto increasingly less veiled allusions to Italy and a dramatic about-face of Paris. Until just over a month […]
Interview with Juan Goytisolo: “No One Emerges Unscathed from an Encounter with Genet”
The Barcelona-born writer recalls his intense relationship with one of his “greatest literary idols.” Juan Goytisolo has just published Genet en el Raval (Genet in El Raval, Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg/Círculo de lectores, 2009), a chronicle of a literary as well as emotional friendship. The Barcelona-born writer met the poet Jean Genet (1910-1986), one of […]
