Subjects Archives: History

The U.S. share of the global economy has shrunk dramatically since 1960. On the other hand, China is on pace to surpass the U.S. in GOP terms in 2030. 

On 17 January 2021, we commemorate the 60th anniversary of the assassination of Patrice Lumumba (1925-1961).

Orphaned after their parents were executed for espionage, the story of the Rosenberg boys is one all Americans should know.

Along with a motley collection of wealthy swindlers and fraudsters, President Donald Trump on Dec. 22 pardoned four former Blackwater private contractors (mercenaries) convicted in the infamous Sept. 16, 2007, Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad.

In this episode we are joined by Christine Desan, Leo Goettlieb professor of law at Harvard Law School to discuss her excellent book, Making Money: Coin, Currency, and the Coming of Capitalism.

Dennis Broe compares and contrasts two images of John Brown in recent TV series. Image above: John Brown at his zaniest, in The Good Lord Bird 

The celebration of Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste reflects the continued priority of elite preferences over the needs and struggles of ordinary people.

Online and on social media, popular historians are helping young Chinese reframe the country’s leftist past in a more positive light.

“We do not tell the people: believe. We say: read,” a statement not made casually, but rather a public expression of a deep conviction, spoken by Fidel in 1961.

In January 1945, Mao Tse-tung sent a message to U.S. President Roosevelt asking to visit the U.S. and discuss future relationships with China. The message got blocked by a U.S. diplomat in China, and Roosevelt apparently did not receive it.

Engels’ study of The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845) is a pioneering work of urban political ecology and urban sociology, that offers a vivid and human portrayal of the horrors which accompanied the Industrial Revolution.

The 1857 Rebellion against British rule in Colonial India hasn’t always received the attention it deserves, despite being one of the most important uprisings of the 19th century. Pranav Jani argues it’s high time we changed that.

The coup followed an election that would have resulted in Morales’ fourth term as president, the results of which were questioned by the Organisation of American States or OAS (60% of whose funding comes from the U.S. government).

What is at stake when we talk about the economics of North American slavery? Over the last 75+ years it has been whether capitalism superseded slavery or whether capitalism and slavery were co-constituted, capitalism to some extent relying on slavery.

As the world continues to grapple with COVID-19, Maeve McGrath takes a look at how artists have depicted plagues and epidemics in times gone past.

2020 is the birthday year of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, whom most of us know as Lenin. If still alive, he would be 150 years old.

In this episode, Money on the Left hosts speak with Rebecca Marchiel, Assistant Professor of History at University of Mississippi, about her important new book, After Redlining: The Urban Reinvestment Movement in the Era of Financial Deregulation (University of Chicago Press, 2020). After Redlining tells the story of the anti-racist urban reinvestment movement in early […]

The Russian diplomacy, which has a glorious tradition in modern history, does not make its moves accidentally or impulsively. The historical consciousness is intense.

The joint statements between two countries are usually riveted on a particular event but in extraordinary circumstances involving great powers, it could assume an epochal character and can be viewed as diplomatic communication that reflects what the Germans call the zeitgeist

At a time when unemployment is skyrocketing in the U.S. and millions of out-of-work Americans have been abandoned by the federal government, it may be of interest to consider how an earlier generation responded to an even greater crisis, the Great Depression (1929-1936).