In the annals of European politics, the elections of spring 2010 will undoubtedly be viewed as a watershed. Under the twin pressures of the global financial slowdown and the Greek economic crisis, far-right parties made significant and worrisome electoral gains …
To see an MSNBC interview with Barkan about this article, click here. For resources and further reading suggested by Barkan, click here. The cost of K–12 public schooling in the United States comes to well over $500 billion per year. …
Senior spring of high school is supposed to be fun, that’s all there is to it. Finally, you are finished with applications for colleges, and your grades have been sent in. For once there is time to relax, to unwind. …
In the Fall 1991 issue of Dissent, Richard Rorty published an essay called “Intellectuals in Politics.” It was not a profile of model figures but something of a jeremiad, castigating American intellectuals for their disconnection from politics and standing by …
At the end of ninth grade, I wandered the halls of my school halfheartedly gathering signatures in my yearbook. Some girls were intent on having everyone in the class sign theirs and would quickly corner you, waving brightly colored pens …
Hope in a Scattering Time: A Life of Christopher Lasch by Eric Miller Eerdmans, 2010, 394 pp. $32 IN 1994, Christopher Lasch died at the age of sixty-one, an inestimable loss to all those interested in American politics and culture. …
What do the depressing, if predictable, results of the 2010 midterm election mean for the potential for progressive change in our country? In the storm of post-debacle opinions, two kinds of arguments have held sway—one quite dark, the other glinting …
Envisioning Real Utopias by Erik Olin Wright Verso, 2010, 394 pp. A BOOK on utopias by a Marxist sociologist seems promising, perhaps even courageous. In Envisioning Real Utopias, Erik Olin Wright seeks to counter widespread cynicism about radical social transformation. …
Right Star Rising: A New Politics, 1974–1980 by Laura Kalman W.W. Norton, 2010, 473 pp. Pivotal Decade: How the United States Traded Factories for Finance in the Seventies by Judith Stein Yale University Press, 2010, 384 pp. Stayin’ Alive: The …
My friends treat my girlfriend, Jennifer, and me like a married couple. They have a point. We have known each other since our first year at the University of California at San Diego, and now we are on our own …
Rebound: Why America Will Emerge Stronger from the Financial Crisis by Stephen J. Rose St Martin’s Press, 2010, 288 pp. The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050 by Joel Kotkin Penguin Press, 2010, 320 pp. The Next 100 Years: A …
It doesn’t take an expert to realize that the current breakdown in Turkish-Israeli relations will likely prove bad for Turkey; bad for Israel; bad for America; and, ultimately, like so much else, bad for the Palestinians. Still, one need not …
I joined the Carpenters Union in Portland, Oregon, in the spring of 1975. At the time, I was one of twenty-two million union members, representing nearly 29 percent of the nation’s work force. Today, despite substantial growth in the size …
A cartoon by Vanessa Davis.
Ever since I left Puerto Rico to begin my life in New York as a student at Sarah Lawrence College, I have thought of myself in comparison to Sergio, the hero of Cuban director Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s great movie Memories …
