NLR 73

articles
Alan Cafruny & Timothy LehmannOver the Horizon?

Nine years on, what is the balance sheet of the Occupation? An accounting of imperial assets—oil contracts, weapons deals, hobbled client state—still in Washington’s pocket after the drawdown.

Philippe SchmitterClassifying an Anomaly

Opening a symposium on Perry Anderson’s The New Old World, Philippe Schmitter records its divergences from the existing EU literature. How should the Union itself be categorized, and what futures await it?

Alain SupiotUnder Eastern Eyes

Origins of the EU’s ‘democratic deficit’ in an assault on the remnants of social democracy—gaining new impetus from the East, in a post-Communist synthesis of neoliberal doctrine and authoritarian practice.

Jan-Werner MüllerBeyond Militant Democracy?

Brussels’s dearth of legitimation has intentional roots, argues Jan-Werner Müller. The role of constitutional fetters in the post-war settlement, and of Christian Democratic distrust of popular sovereignty.

Perry AndersonAfter the Event

Replying to critics, Anderson renews his critique of European narcissism, before turning to the dynamics of the EU debt crisis, and Berlin’s role in producing and exacerbating it.

Wolfgang StreeckMarkets and Peoples

Today’s Euro-turmoil as amplification of the clash between popular and financial interests. Turns of the dialectic of democracy and capitalism, and possible escape routes from the dictatorship of capital markets.

interview
Pierre BrocheuxReflections on Vietnam

Leading historian of Indochina discusses the emergence of nationalist and communist impulses—and their subsequent fusion—in the country’s long struggle against outside rule.

articles
Julian StallabrassThe Hockney Industry

Bucolic themes blend with hi-tech commercialism, in the output of a British national treasure.

Ismail XavierWays of Listening in a Visual Medium

Within a mediasphere dominated by telenovelas and spectacularized news, what role for documentary film? Recent examples of a critical, anthropologically inflected cinema from Brazil.

Mario TrontiOur Operaismo

Reflections on the historical experience, core friendships and culture of operaismo from one of its intellectual figureheads. Workerism as a perspective and a politics now lost to decades of defeat.

reviews
Whose Golden Age?

Hazem Kandil on Alaa Al Aswany, On the State of Egypt. The author of The Yacoubian Building yearns for a lost golden age of liberalism.

The Soldier’s Swansong

Daniel Finn on Tommy McKearney, The Provisional IRA. Trenchant history of Irish republicanism by a critical participant-observer.

An Odd Couple

Anders Stephanson on Scott Miller, The President and the Assassin. McKinley meets his nemesis amid labour crackdowns at the dawn of the US imperial age.