Monthly Review Press

A Hidden History of the Cuban Revolution reviewed in E-International Relations

A Hidden History of the Cuban Revolution reviewed in E-International Relations

Drawing on exceptionally rare, difficult-to-access collections of underground publications, pamphlets, and oral testimonies—more difficult to access that the author admits—Cushion pushes back against several traditions of argumentation that have tended to cast labor struggle in the 1950s to the historiographical margins. Importantly, these lacunae in explaining the Cuban Revolution’s origins have remained equally persistent among Cuban and non-Cuban historians, the Revolution’s admirers and its fiercest critics.

Marciano: Steven Spielberg to direct another fantasy; this one about Walter Cronkite & the Vietnam War

Marciano: Steven Spielberg to direct another fantasy; this one about Walter Cronkite & the Vietnam War

The word out of Hollywood is that Steven Spielberg plans to direct a film about famed television commentator Walter Cronkite. According to Variety, it will highlight Cronkite’s protest against the War in Vietnam—especially ‘the role that he played in turning public opinion against the increasingly un-winnable conflict.’ So goes the myth. In reality, Cronkite never opposed the war itself; rather, he only came to question it after the Tet Offensive made it clear that the U.S. policy in Vietnam was not working.

Save the Georg Lukács Archive!

From the time the current rightist government in Hungary came into power, the archive of Georg Lukács–a preeminent Marxist of the 20th century–has been under a brutal attack. It has been gradually deprived of its subvention from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and of its ability to pay its staff. Now, the government threatens to sell the property on which it is located and disperse the archive.

Big Farms Make Big Flu  an “important polemic,” says ResoluteReader

Big Farms Make Big Flu an “important polemic,” says ResoluteReader

The media is a fickle beast, so coverage of potential epidemics of diseases veers between the apocalyptic to nonexistence. As an outbreak occurs we hear about the potential terrifying consequences of the disease, combined with graphic details of the symptoms and frequently pictures of large numbers of dead animals. Rob Wallace‘s new book is an important polemic that argues that we, as a society, should be a lot more concerned about the potential for disease to decimate the human population