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Chronicle of a City Foretold

Andy Merrifield on Mike Davis, Magical Urbanism: Latinos Reinvent the US Big City. What are the patterns, and what will be the consequences—social, cultural, political—of the massive influx of immigrants from lands south of the Rio Grande into North American cityscapes?

The Boom and the Bubble

In the last four years, the US economy has posted its best performance since the sixties. What is the connexion between the formidable boom in the real economy and the historically unprecedented bubble on the stock market? Could the inflation of asset values far beyond the rise in corporate earnings be preparing a Japanese-style nemesis?

Markets of the Mind

What does a survey of the fare in different videostores tell us about the social geography of big cities in the West? How should the quotient of violence in it be calibrated? The logic of the ghetto in today’s entertainment industry.

Throttling Iraq

The bombing and starving of Iraq are nearing their tenth year. Catechisms and consequences of the Anglo-American blockade, as a defining memorial of the Clinton and Blair regimes.

Cuba under the Hammer

How has the Cuban Revolution withstood the American siege at the end of the century? In the wake of the Elián González affair, Robin Blackburn looks at exile politics in Miami, the record of the White House, and the scene in Havana.

Reforming/Deforming Welfare

Clinton’s finest hour, on the welfare front. The moral hysterias and mean calculations of US reform are now a benchmark for post-social-democracy in Britain. Joel Handler considers the fall in American welfare rolls, and the realities of poverty and vulnerability behind them.

A Tale of Two Cities

Adventures in pursuit of house and home across three continents—from service with national liberation in Mozambique to the labyrinths of bureaucratic Moscow and the tribulations of DIY Chicago. An Armenian’s sly homage to upside-down internationalism.

Anatomy of Clintonomics

The performance of the American economy is widely hailed as stellar, and the policies of the US President as financially prudent and socially progressive. Robert Pollin dismantles Clinton’s record as steward and reformer. Stock bubble and poverty sump as ‘residuals’ of the New Economy?

'New York Times' Obituaries

What do the obituaries in Manhattan’s leading daily tell us about the nervous system of America’s liberal democracy? The filters and foibles of the success story as a grid for social memory.

False Indignation

Russell Jacoby on Guy Oakes and Arthur Vidich, Collaboration, Reputation and Ethics in American Academic Life. The relationship between Gerth and Mills in the retrospect of orthodox sociology.

The New Imperial State

Globalization is the watchword of the moment. Does it mean the irresistible sway of markets over states—or are welfare regimes in Europe or dirigiste governments in East Asia still potentially robust? Neither, Leo Panitch argues: the reality is an unprecedented dominance of the United States over world capital flows and allied political systems alike.

Counsellor to Clinton

Tom Mertes on Dick Morris, The New Prince. America's fallen political adviser as a surrogate Machiavelli for the White House.

An Unsuspected Collectivism?

Pension funds are now huge forces in Anglo-American financial markets. Could they become levers of radical socialization, if their nominal collective ownership were activated from below? Henri Jacot of the French CGT doubts it.

Angeleno Anomalies

Doreen Massey on Mike Davis, The Ecology of Fear. Facts and phobias in Los Angeles: what constitutes a global city today.

Seattle Diary: It’s a Gas, Gas, Gas

“Seattle has always struck me as a suspiciously clean city, manifesting a tidiness that verges on the compulsive. It is the Singapore of the United States: spitpolished, glossy, and eerily beautiful. Indeed, there is, perhaps, no more scenic setting for a city set next to Elliot Bay on . . .” read more

Inequality and Unemployment in Europe: The American Cure

“What is the relationship between inequality and unemployment? This question is perhaps the most important issue in the political economy of Europe, and it has relevance for other regions with developing transnational ties, including the United States and the North American region.” read more

The Bosnian Protectorate and the Implications for Kosovo

“The international Contact Group proposals for the future of Kosovo, put forward at the Paris/Rambouillet talks, in February 1999—advocating an international Implementations Mission in Kosovo—were based on the provisions of the Dayton Peace Agreement of November 1995, which ended the Bosnian conflict. If nato gets its way, . . .” read more

The Grand Illusion of Democratic Nationalism: A Reply to Michael Lind

“The editors have been kind enough to give me space to respond to Michael Lind’s reply to my article on the us Constitution in nlr 232.” read more

Kosovo: The War of NATO Expansion

“nato has established a Kosovo protectorate at the cost of great suffering for its people, and in a manner calculated to store up future problems. The bombing by nato generalized and greatly intensified the persecution of the Kosovans and destroyed infrastructure throughout Yugoslavia. There were . . .” read more

Springtime for NATO

“When Western leaders assemble in Washington, later this year, to celebrate the fiftieth birthday of nato, how will they assess the Balkan campaign of Spring 1999? The aim of the summit is a new mission statement for nato, transforming it from a defensive alliance into a . . .” read more

Magical Urbanism: Latinos Reinvent the US Big City

“Sometime during 1996, at the very latest, Latinos surpassed Blacks as the second largest ethno-racial group in New York City. (They long have been the largest census group in the Bronx.) There were no street celebrations in El Barrio or Washington Heights, nor did the mayor hold a . . .” read more

Protecting the Kosovars?

“Once again, and led by the United States as usual, a war is being conducted—this time in Europe—against an unprincipled and racist dictator who will almost certainly survive the onslaught, even though thousands of innocents will pay the actual price. The pretext this time is, of course, the . . .” read more

Against the Double Blackmail

“The prize-winner in the contest for the greatest blunder of 1998 was a Latin American patriotic terrorist who sent a letter-bomb to a us consulate in order to protest against the Americans interfering in local politics. As a conscientious citizen, he wrote on the envelope his return . . .” read more

The NATO Powers and the Balkan Tragedy

“Western powers usually legitimize military interventions in terms of a proclaimed commitment to some universalist norm or to some goal embodying such a norm. These declared goals can oscillate, but they are important because a central element of their foreign policy, particularly when it involves starting a war, . . .” read more

Pounding Out a DRUM Beat

“Dearly beloved,” read more

Why There Will Be No Revolution in the US: A Reply to Daniel Lazare

“In recent years, Daniel Lazare has emerged as one of the most provocative and insightful critics of the us federal constitution and the superstitious reverence for it which is cultivated by the American political establishment. In his brilliant polemic The Frozen Republic (1996), Lazare subjected American political . . .” read more

Securing Occupation: The Real Meaning of the Wye River Memorandum

“As a formal document, the Wye River Memorandum breaks no new ground.Its stated purpose is merely to reaffirm and ‘facilitate implementation’ of ‘prior agreements’.Nonetheless, the Memorandum illuminates the process set in motion at Oslo and dispels lingering illusions.In these remarks, I will first sketch the crucial historical background, . . .” read more

America the Undemocratic

“The United States, as every American schoolchild knows, is the oldest and still greatest political democracy on earth. Non(Un?)-Americans may disagree, but on one point there is complete unanimity: the United States is different. Just how different can be gleaned from two seemingly innocuous statements by the man . . .” read more

US War Crimes in Somalia

“In his foreword to Mogadishu! Heroism and Tragedy, Ross Perot wrote: ‘Read this book carefully. Never forget its contents as you watch the tv docu-dramas of smart bombs going down air shafts, where war is presented in a sterile, sanitized environment. Remember, war is fighting and dying.’ . . .” read more

Power in the Global Arena

“I would like to talk primarily about the United States, its place in the evolving world order, and the prospects for the future. The record of prediction in human affairs is not exactly inspiring, but the task is hopeless without at least a fair grasp of what has . . .” read more

The Strategic Triad: The United States, Russia, and China

“The official end of the Cold War, marked by the growing incapacity and then the collapse of the Soviet Union, inevitably meant a reduction of us military expenditure. This had long been regarded as essential from a strictly economic point of view: the extraordinary prodigality of the . . .” read more

Fosterites and Feminists, Or 1950s Ultra-Leftists and the Invention of AmeriKKKa

“‘It suffices but to mention the chauvinist ideology which still penetrates the core and culture of our national life, rendering many people susceptible to infliction from this social disease.’—Claudia Jones” read more

Confronting Neoliberal Regimes: The Post-Marxist Embrace of Populism and Realipolitik

“The dominance of neoliberal policies in Anglo-American countries during the past two decades has not only had a profound impact on the character and programmes of major parties, but has also led to dramatic changes within the ranks of former Marxists and critical theorists. These former radicals now . . .” read more

Behind Blue Eyes: Whiteness and Contemporary US Racial Politics

“In a quiet office at a Washington think tank, a tract is composed on the biologically determined intellectual inferiority of blacks. Out on a Brooklyn street, as black demonstrators march through a segregated white enclave, the residents yell racist epithets. At an urban college campus in California, Latinos . . .” read more

A Minority of One: An Interview with Norman Mailer

“I think of you as someone who’s always been in the opposition, always a dissident, not just to the wider society but even in his own circles. I remember you once saying to me that you’d refined your dissidence, you could give it a name, you were now . . .” read more

Bosnia and the Revival of US Hegemony

“The primary concern of us policy-makers, Democrats and Republicans, since the Second World War has been ‘world leadership’. Where necessary and possible domestic issues have been subordinated to the overarching goal of constructing and sustaining us hegemony over allies, confrontation with adversaries and domination of clients. . . .” read more

A New American Politics: Who Will Answer the Invitation?

“Joel Rogers (nlr 210) has done the Left in the us a great service in pointing out that the current political conjuncture in the us ‘is the unstated invitation to progressive action, our opportunity to do some good.’ As Rogers argues, liberalism is dying, the . . .” read more

Sympathy for the Devils: Notes on Some White Guys in the Ridiculous Class War

“It seems like another era, though it was less than five years ago, when I was sitting around the Men’s Wisdom Council, grunting Ho with the guys, and studying their hodgepodge, Shake-and-Bake ‘traditions’ for a book I was writing on changing conceptions of white straight men. But now, . . .” read more

Haldeman’s Sixties

“H.R. Haldeman, Richard Nixon’s crew-cut Chief of Staff, was the man Nixon trusted most. That made him the most powerful person in the Nixon White House after the President himself. ‘If a historian had had a fantasy of knowing all that one man nearest to Nixon had known,’ . . .” read more

The Hollywood Left: Aesthetics and Politics

“Two generations after McCarthyism, the Hollywood Left has almost receded from living memory. Its principal figures now show up mainly in the obituary columns of the New York Times and Los Angeles Times, their experiences with the blacklist reduced to a sentence or deleted entirely. The most politically . . .” read more

Mississippi Dreaming: On the Fame of John Law

“Du sein de ces froides abstractions, du sein de cet” read more

How Divided Progressives Might Unite

“Among us progressives, most discussion of domestic politics is taken up with descriptions of social problems—falling wages and rising inequality, retreats from racial justice, destruction of inner-city neighborhoods, environmental degradation, violence against women, the agonizing problems of urban youth. The inventory reminds us that current policies fail . . .” read more

Gruesome Gertie at the Buckle of the Bible Belt

“‘Ah got ta tell ya bad days are here. Bad days have come.’” read more

California Rages Against the Dying of the Light

“For several decades California has played a leading role in the United States and world capitalism, but things have taken a sudden turn for the worse after a period of brilliant growth. Now, at the end of the millennium, California is a microcosm of the national malaise, the . . .” read more

Why the Democrats Lost

“American pundits greeted both the election of Bill Clinton in 1992 and the Republican capture of Congress last November as seismic convulsions in us politics. Clinton was congratulated for reuniting those middle-income whites who had regularly defected to the Republicans in presidential elections since 1968 with the . . .” read more

The Myth of Multiculturalism

“Multiculturalism, cultural diversity, cultural pluralism: in the United States few causes have won such widespread enthusiasm. These phrases kick off a thousand speeches and articles; they appear in hundreds of essays and books. Government officials, college administrators, corporate executives, museum curators, high-school principals—to name just a few—declare their . . .” read more

Explaining New York City’s Aberrant Economy

“While much of the us undergoes a halting recovery from the ‘contained depression’ of the early 1990s, America’s largest city has remained mired in its sharpest downturn since the days of Fiorello LaGuardia. New York’s unemployment rate—which spiked in January 1993 at 13.4 per cent—has continued at . . .” read more

Don't Confuse Me with Facts: Clinton 'Just Says No'

“The us Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders spoke the unspeakable at a press conference on 8 December 1993. She courageously suggested that the government look at the experience of countries that had decriminalized drugs. She said it was her understanding that in other countries the crime rate and . . .” read more

Nationalism and Richard Rorty: The Text as a Flag for Pax Americana

“Richard Rorty is in danger of attaining the sort of eminence which today is normally reserved for French philosophes. He is one of the few English-language thinkers whom defenders of postmodernism feel able to cite along-side the continental icons of Foucault, Derrida and Baudrillard. He has been described, . . .” read more

'Win-Win' with Bruce Babbitt: The Clinton Administration Meets the Environment

“For the environmental movement in America the allure of the Democratic ticket in 1992 was not Bill Clinton. His record in Arkansas was poor. Tyson, the chicken mogul, had fouled the state’s rivers with an enthusiasm equalled only by his zeal for Clinton’s political well-being. Not fifteen miles . . .” read more