NLR 16

articles
Geisa Maria RochaNeo-Dependency in Brazil

As the world economy deteriorates, Brazil staggers under debt burdens generated by Fernando Henrique Cardoso, at the mercy of foreign capital. An economic and social audit of the debacle of the Third Way in South America.

Jonathan AracAnglo-Globalism?

Does Franco Moretti’s new programme for a study of world literature carry global English in its pocket, as the ticket to leave close reading behind? The cost and benefits of Auerbach’s philology and Said’s sociology, as alternative approaches.

Peter GowanA Calculus of Power

John Mearsheimer’s Tragedy of Great Power Politics disdains liberal-imperial rhetoric for a tough-minded theory of ‘offensive realism’. Peter Gowan argues that, whatever its merits, the behaviour of states in the international system cannot be dissociated from the internal dynamics of the political orders they protect.

Walden BelloPacific Panopticon

The Filipino analyst and organizer of Focus on the Global South, veteran of the years of Allende and Marcos, discusses the prospects for the World Social Forum after September 11, arguing for the need to link protests against the IMF and WTO to campaigns against US military expansion.

Francis MulhernBeyond Metaculture

Replying to Stefan Collini in NLR 7, Francis Mulhern extends his critique of the pretensions of culture to general social authority, to the Marxist versions of Kulturkritik in the Frankfurt School. What defines the difference between politics and culture as practices?

Peter WollenSpeed and the Cinema

Jeopardy and menace, flight and pursuit: the highwire and lion’s den as kindred to the cinematic thrill. Peter Wollen reflects on the varied tempos of the avant-garde, from René Clair to Michael Snow; and on the planetary expansion of the culture of speed.

David MurphyAn African Brecht

An aesthetic of discrepancy—epic sweep, domestic naturalism, social satire, expressionist set-piece—marks the complex cinema of Ousmane Sembene. Themes of contestation and corruption played out in pre- and post-Independence Senegal.

reviews
The Age of Identity?

Gopal Balakrishnan on Lutz Niethammer, Kollektive Identität. How rooted are current conceptions of collective identity in an ominous inter-war history, and what substitutes are on offer?

Monetized Ecology

Jacob Stevens on Bjørn Lomborg, The Sceptical Environmentalist. Cost-benefit analysis of land, air and oceans yields a panglossian ecological forecast for the century ahead.

Heirs of Tangentopoli

John Foot on Paul Ginsborg, Italy and Its Discontents. Micro and macro history of sea changes in Italy over the last twenty years.