NLR 153

article
Zhang YongleReconfiguring Hegemony

A view from China of the battle for America’s ideological soul, pitting Trump, home-grown nemesis of Western liberal democracy, against Francis Fukuyama, subtlest philosopher of its world-historical triumph. Are these contrasted figures two manifestations of the same hegemonic principle?

interview
Roberto SchwarzPolitical Polyphonies

Interview with the Brazilian critic and theorist on the literary and political ideas informing his epic play, Queen Lira. A volatile cacophony of voices disputing his country’s path, from Dilma’s impeachment to Bolsonaro’s rise and Lula’s unexpected return.

articles
Alyssa BattistoniSituating Freedom

How might we reimagine freedom on an increasingly turbulent and resource-constrained planet? Charting a course between rival left accounts, Alyssa Battistoni offers a conception inspired by de Beauvoir’s Ethics of Ambiguity: a ‘situated’ freedom, which recognizes natural contingency and centres human agency.

Aaron BenanavBeyond Capitalism—1

In the first instalment of a major contribution to the reconceptualization of a post-capitalist social order, Aaron Benanav marshals insights from a long century of socialist thought and practice—Cabet, Marx, Preobrazhensky, Neurath, Keynes—to lay the theoretical foundations for his own multi-criterial model.

obituary
NLR EditorsMichael Burawoy: 1947–2025

The well-travelled life and consistently lucid, radical thought of global labour’s great comparative ethnographer—and social theorist.

articles
Michael BurawoyPalestine through a South African Lens

In a draft text sent to NLR before his tragically early death, the sociologist reflects on the reasons for the starkly different outcomes of Afrikaner and Zionist settler colonialisms: in South Africa, a unified democratic republic, with all its problems; in Israel, ongoing war.

Michael LevienMichael Burawoy

Intellectual reconstruction of the work of Michael Burawoy, from globe-spanning analysis of production regimes—post-colonial, advanced capitalist, state socialist—to theoretical dialogues with Polanyi, Bourdieu and Du Bois.