Spring Confronts Winter
Echoes of past rebellions in 2011’s global upsurge of protest. Against a backdrop of world economic slump, what forces will shape the outcome of contests between a raddled system and its emergent challengers?
articles
The Greek Cauldron
Why has Greece proved to be the weakest link in the Eurozone? Stathis Kouvelakis examines the contours of the post-dictatorship model, and the popular mobilizations that have arisen within its ruins.
Crisis 2.0
Atlantic economies remain mired in unemployment and stagnation three years on from 2008. Diagnosing the underlying causes of the crisis as global over-capacity, deficient demand and anarchic credit creation, Robin Blackburn explores proposals for a genuine exit from it to the left.
interview
The Citizen Camera
A feminist filmmaker discusses the role of documentaries in China’s civil-rights protests. Activism and the digital image, from village struggles in Guangdong to the courtrooms of Fujian, via the plains of Henan and Sichuan’s earthquake zone.
article
Academicians of Lagado?
Vast claims have been made for the application of Darwinian concepts—purged of biological determinism—to the study of societies. Kenta Tsuda offers a penetrating and original critique of selection theory, finding a paradigm with limited explanatory value and shaky conceptual foundations.
obituary
Lucio Magri
Homage to an outstanding figure of the European Left, who fought to preserve the link between radical thought and mass politics as Italy’s Communist tradition dissolved around him.
article
Combative Literatures
Against both narrowly national and homogenizing global approaches, Pascale Casanova argues for a dual optic on literature, considering national systems as competing entities within an agonistic world of letters.
obituary
Peter Campbell
Remembering the watercolourist, typographer and writer—resident art critic at the London Review of Books—who redesigned NLR.
reviews
Paper-Tiger Finance?
Hung Ho-fung on Carl Walter and Fraser Howie, Red Capitalism. Two Wall Street China hands assess the PRC’s transition from plan to market.
The Dollar Era
Andrea Boltho on Barry Eichengreen, Exorbitant Privilege. The dollar’s long reign as global reserve currency and prospects for its continued hegemony.
The Sanskrit Ecumene
Alexander Beecroft on Sheldon Pollock, The Language of the Gods in the World of Men. South Asia’s shift from holy to vernacular tongues measured against European parallels.
