A review of Stephen Greenblatt, Will in the World: How Shakespeare became Shakespeare (Jonathan Cape, 2004); and James Shapiro, 1599: A year in the life of William Shakespeare (Faber, 2005) Two recent bestselling biographies of William Shakespeare have provided entertaining… Continue Reading
A review of Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (Verso, 2006), £12.99 If there is one book on nationalism that every student is expected to read, one book that is certain to be included… Continue Reading
Visit any high street bookshop chain in Britain and before very long you are likely to encounter one or more stands devoted solely to the subject of happiness and wellbeing. Recent titles range from Happiness: Lessons from a New Science… Continue Reading
A new word1 entered the vocabulary of the left in November 1999 with the momentous protest against the World Trade Organisation in Seattle—”neoliberalism”.2 Just as the movement that erupted at that protest defined itself as being against “globalisation” (or “corporate… Continue Reading
Mike Davis’s book Planet of Slums provides a brilliant account of the rapid growth of urban areas and megaslums, created by the hammer blows of the global restructuring of the world system since the 1970s. Though Davis’s principle arguments concern… Continue Reading
The “united front” is a strategy. It is the answer revolutionaries give to a very general question: how should workers committed to the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism relate to those who believe that the system can be reformed and does… Continue Reading
h Two meetings took place in London on 17 November 2007, in venues about two miles apart. One was the 360-strong annual conference of Respect, which was attended by 270 delegates from 49 local branches and 17 student groups. The… Continue Reading
Costas Lapavitsas, a leading Marxist economist, spoke to International Socialism about the unfolding financial crisis and its lessons Can you explain how the current crisis, centred on subprime mortgages, developed in the US economy? As with all credit and financial… Continue Reading
There are two sorts of defeats the left can suffer. There are devastating defeats that set it back years or even decades. And there are small defeats from which it can learn. The defeat for Hugo Chavez’s referendum on a… Continue Reading
The title of an article we ran on Pakistan 18 months ago was “On the Edge of Instability”. Now the country is well inside the arc of instability created by the “war on terror”, adding to the multitude of problems… Continue Reading