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The Almanac Singers playing various instruments, including guitars, a banjo, and an accordion.

"Which Side Are You On, Boys..."

Watching the Ken Burns series on the U.S. and the Holocaust and thinking about American folk music.
by William Hogeland via Hogeland's Bad History on October 3, 2022
Guar standing in front of a building with a large painting of Mao Zedung above the entrance.
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Turn Out the Lights: When the Last American Diplomats Fled China

Untold stories of American diplomats who "lost" China.
by Joe Renouard via HNN on May 10, 2020

The Inner Life of American Communism

Vivian Gornick’s and Jodi Dean’s books mine a lost history of comradeship, determination, and intimacy.
by Corey Robin via The Nation on May 5, 2020
A crowd with communist and unemployment relief signs listens to a woman making a speech.

What Endures of the Romance of American Communism

Many of the Communists who felt destined for a life of radicalism experienced their lives as irradiated by a kind of expressiveness that made them feel centered.
by Vivian Gornick via New York Review of Books on April 3, 2020
Rebecca West.

Whittaker Chambers Through the Eyes of Rebecca West

West understood more clearly than anyone the allure of Communism for educated Westerners.
by Peter Baehr via National Review on April 2, 2020
Black marchers picket in front of the White House to ask FDR to free the Scottsboro boys.

How 'Communism' Brought Racial Equality to the South

The Communist Party fought for racial equality in the South, specifically Alabama, where segregation was most oppressive.
by Robin D. G. Kelley, Michel Martin via NPR on February 16, 2010
Frank Meyer testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1959.

Frank Meyer’s Path from Devoted Communist to Promoter of Conservative ‘Fusionism’

A detailed, exhausting, and ultimately too-gentle treatment of the midcentury writer and editor, Frank Meyer.
by Joshua Tait via The Bulwark on August 26, 2025
Part of the Parthenon Frieze, Elgin Marbles, British Museum.

The Origins of the West

Georgios Varouxakis reexamines when and why people began to conceptualize "the West."
by Max Skjönsberg via Law & Liberty on August 25, 2025
Elon Musk wields a 'chainsaw for bureaucracy' on stage before speaking at CPAC.

Beyond Markets: A Conversation with Quinn Slobodian

How the New Right emerged from neoliberalism’s inner split.
by Quinn Slobodian, James Duesterberg via The Point on August 5, 2025
John F. Kennedy meeting with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, 1961.

The Way We Understand the Cold War Is Wrong

People tend to assume they know exactly what the Cold War was and when it ended. Anders Stephanson argues that this standard chronology doesn’t fit the facts.
by Anders Stephanson via Jacobin on July 27, 2025
Mike Gold fading into a field of stars of David.

On the Decades-Long Erasure of Jewish Working-Class Anti-Zionism

Mike Gold, Alexander Bittelman, and the paradoxes of left-wing Zionism.
by Benjamin Balthaser via Literary Hub on July 23, 2025
The Communist National Convention at its first session on June 24, 1936, at the Manhattan Opera House in New York City.

The Long Anti-Zionist History of the American Jewish Left

Thousands of left-wing American Jews have protested Israel. They are taking part in a tradition of anti-Zionist Jewish radicalism.
by Benjamin Balthaser via Jacobin on July 21, 2025
An illustration of blurry Korean people in the ruins of a city after a nuclear bombing.

The Atomic Bombs’ Forgotten Korean Victims

Survivors of the nuclear blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki are still fighting for recognition.
by E. Tammy Kim via The New Yorker on June 16, 2025
AFL-CIO president Lane Kirkland stands behind a podium speaking into an array of microphones.

When US Labor Backed US Imperialism

After the successful purges of leftists from unions, US labor leaders were enlisted by government officials to join in their global imperialist operations.
by Micah Uetricht, Jeff Schuhrke via Jacobin on May 26, 2025
The Young Lords in New York, 1969-1976.

How New York City’s Radical Social Movements Gave Rise to Hip-Hop

The revolutionary history behind one of America’s main musical exports.
by Dean Van Nguyen via Literary Hub on May 6, 2025
A group of Asian men standing with towels around their necks

“Endless Bad Infinity”

A conversation with the creators of a podcast series on the feedback loop of American empire.
by Charlotte Rosen, Noah Kulwin, Brendan James via Public Books on April 22, 2025
A caricature of Murray Kempton.

The Rebellions of Murray Kempton

One of his generation’s most prolific journalists, Kempton never turned a blind eye to the inequalities all around him.
by Vivian Gornick via The Nation on April 8, 2025
Front cover of the 1940 issue Anvil by John C. Rogers showing a muscular man in bold red strokes.

Anvil, the Forgotten Magazine of Heartland Marxism

Anvil's popular vision for a multiracial socialism in the heart of the US could hardly be more urgent today.
by Marc Blanc via Jacobin on February 23, 2025
A group of U.S. Marines crossing a rice paddy in Vietnam.

‘Commonweal’ and the Vietnam War

In 1964, Commonweal supported the Vietnam War. In 1966, the magazine condemned it in blunt, theological terms. What changed?
by Peter Steinfels via Commonweal on February 22, 2025
A magnifying glass and Francis Fukuyama's book "The End of History and the Last Man."

Francis Fukuyama Was Right About Liberal Democracy

For all of its faults and weaknesses, no serious competitor has emerged to capture people’s imagination or seriously challenge it.
by Michael A. Cohen via The New Republic on February 18, 2025
W.E.B. DuBois, seated in garden reading book, while Shirley Graham DuBois waters plants.

How Black Marxists Have Understood Racial Oppression

Black Marxist thought emphasizes the centrality of capitalism to racial oppression and the destructiveness of that oppression for all workers.
by Jeff Goodwin, Jonah Birch via Jacobin on February 17, 2025
An illustration of space, with two silhouettes of heads overlapping.

The Fraught U.S.-Soviet Search for Alien Life

During the Cold War, American and Soviet scientists embarked on an unprecedented quest to contact extraterrestrials.
by Sophie Pinkham via The New Yorker on February 6, 2025
William F. Buckley, Donald Trump.

The Modern Conservative Tradition and the Origins of Trumpism

Today’s Trumpist radicals are not (small-c) conservatives – but they stand in the continuity of Modern Conservatism’s defining political project.
by Thomas Zimmer via Democracy Americana on December 16, 2024
CPUSA members demonstrate in Union Square on May Day, ca. 1930s.

Maurice Isserman’s Red Scare

A new history of the CPUSA reads like a Cold War throwback.
by Benjamin Balthaser via The Baffler on November 21, 2024
Protestors after Nixon's Election protesting the end to war.

US Labor and the Gaza War: Historical Perspective

Are we doomed to repetition? It’s something I worry about.
by Tim Barker via Origins of Our Time on November 15, 2024
The Executive Board of UCAPAWA in 1937.

Challenging the New Deal’s “Contemptible Neglect”

In the midst of the Great Depression, one CIO union used the new administrative state to influence legislation on behalf of people considered outcasts.
by Jarod Roll via Nonsite on September 21, 2024
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner testifying before the Senate Budget Committee in 2009.

The Intractable Puzzle of Growth

The key measure of a healthy economy has long been growth, yet if production and consumption expand at their current rate we risk the health of the planet.
by Benjamin Kunkel via The Nation on August 26, 2024
Angela Davis standing at podium, speaking at Communist Party USA event.

How and Why American Communism Failed

Plus: One historian’s about-face on the Communist record.
by Ronald Radosh via The Bulwark on August 2, 2024

We Can Breathe! Anti-Fascists United

What was the Popular Front? Where did it come from, and where did its energies go?
by Gabriel Winant via London Review of Books on August 1, 2024
Broken hammer and sickle illustration.

The Cause That Turned Idealists Into Authoritarian Zealots

The history of American Communism shows that dogma and fervor are no substitute for popular support.
by Maurice Isserman via The Atlantic on June 17, 2024
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