NLR 110

articles
Stathis KouvelakisBorderland

Against panegyrics to a frictionless, post-national EU polity, evidence from Europe’s multiple borders. Greece as gauge of an emerging order, in which interior and exterior tangle in overlapping jurisdictions and enforcement zones, ultimately dependent on Libyan warlords, Turkish prisons and the mass graves of the Mediterranean.

Nuria Alabao, Beatriz García & Marisa PérezSpain’s Feminist Strike

What led millions to participate in Spain’s nationwide women’s strike—a stoppage of care work as well as wage labour? Assessment of the forces at play—movement organizing, the media, unions, parties—and the potential of 8M to tilt the political balance of forces.

Francis MulhernCritical Revolutions

In response to a bold reconstruction of Anglophone literary studies challenging the political self-understanding of the reigning historicism and looking to a new, interventionist departure on the left, some critical considerations on disciplinary history, the place of ‘knowledge’ in the fictional order, as well as the discourses that address it, and the precedent of Leavis and his followers.

interview
Fernando Martínez HerediaThinking for Ourselves

Leading Cuban intellectual and militant of the revolutionary generation discusses his path through the 26 July Movement to Batista’s overthrow and founding Pensamiento Crítico, a beacon of critical Marxist thought throughout Latin America.

article
Mike DavisTaking the Temperature of History

From Vichy-era rural conservatism, via communism and Furet, to a grand synthesis in ecological history, culminating decades of empirical research. Portrait of Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, historical materialist and quasi-reactionary, founder of historical climatology and last outpost of Annales-school historiography.

obituary
Marcus Giraldes & Juliana NeuenschwanderMarielle Franco: 1979–2018

Life and death of the Rio de Janeiro city councillor who battled the military lockdown of the favelas, in the context of the restoration to office of Brazil’s traditional ruling caste.

article
Marielle FrancoAfter the Take-Over

In the wake of Temer’s take-over, Brazil’s crisis viewed from the perspective of the favelas. Analysis of the gendered conditions in the peripheries—now under redoubled assault—and their potential for mobilization against the conservative wave.

reviews
The Fourth Power?

Wolfgang Streeck on Joseph Vogl, The Ascendancy of Finance. The historic interpenetration of government and haute finance, epitomized in the secrecy of the Federal Reserve and ECB.

Vicissitudes of Psychoanalysis

Philip Derbyshire on Dagmar Herzog, Cold War Freud. Episodes from the psychoanalytical movement’s turbulent post-war career, as seen by a historian of sex.