Tag: Imperialism

“A lasting tribute to meticulous journalism” (The Hidden History of the Korean War: New Edition reviewed in ‘Asian Affairs’)

February 20, 2024

Stone, as always working from open-source materials, condemned the continuation of the bombing of the north even though there were no viable military targets left…These days, the Stone’s ‘Hidden History,’ while still viewed with hostility in certain quarters, is regarded as one of his best works. But given that it appeared long before the archives were open and while the conflict in Korea continued, is there merit in republishing it? The answer is yes. Stone may not have got everything right, and occasionally lapses into conspiracy theories, but his broad picture was accurate enough at the time and remains so. It is a lasting tribute to meticulous journalism.

An indomitable anti-Zionist Jewish feminist talks about the steadfastness (sumud) of Palestinians (A Land With A People coeditor interviewed for ‘The Famous Feminist’)

February 20, 2024

“…a woman in Gaza, her family had been bombed out of their home. But she was determined to make bread and she had found a hot plate. She was making these breads. She said you could get killed going to the bakery, you can’t go to the bakery. They’re bombing the bakeries. So I’m doing this. Her kids are in the street, sitting under a tarpaulin. And she’s making bread. That’s a form of heroism, you know?
…I asked them, “Do you ever feel like you should leave?” They replied, ‘We stay here. We’re not leaving. This is our home.’ That’s a form of resistance.”

Contradictions of the contemporary accumulation regime (Socialist Register 2023 reviewed in ‘Counterfire’)

February 20, 2024

as Marx showed, while accumulation creates an ever greater mass of means of production, this in itself begins to throw up barriers to the profitable reproduction of such great quantities of capital. This contradiction results in the intensification of competition between capitals over labour, raw materials and markets, not the least consequence of which is imperialist tension and war…

On Izzy Stone and his analysis of Korean peace negotiations(The Hidden History of the Korean War in ‘Al’s Substack’)

February 20, 2024

As Tim Beal and Gregory Elich tell us in their excellent introduction to the new 2023 edition of the book, by closely examining various sources, Stone found inconsistencies that challenged the official narrative of how and why the war started. Most prominently, Stone found considerable evidence suggesting that U.S. and South Korean officials had probable foreknowledge of the North Korean offensive, which they chose not to try to prevent…

WATCH: 50 YEARS OF DEPENDENCY THEORY

February 20, 2024

This year, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the publication of The Dialectics of Dependency, Monthly Review Press released the first-ever English translation of Ruy Mauro Marini’s classic – one of the most important texts in the field of Latin American Dependency Theory. An event celebrating its release was held in mid September at The People’s Forum, featuring Cristóbal Reyes (representing his advisor Jaime Osorio), Phethani Madzivhandila, Chris Gilbert and Andy Higginbotham, and co-hosted by Joseph Mullen and Jaime Osorio’s coeditor, Amanda Latimer.

The first war the U.S. lost: Korea, not forgotten, hidden (Tim Beal in ‘Pearls and Irritations’)

February 20, 2024

Wars never start on the date given in history books. There is always a pre-history, a series of events and decisions that lead to the outbreak of fighting. The war in Korea has been called in America the ‘Forgotten War’ and it is not difficult to see why it was soon shunted out of public sight, consigned to oblivion. It was the first war that the United States did not win and it ended in an armistice, a concession of stalemate, but also an ominous indicator of unfinished business…

A chilling account of the development of US nuclear strategy (Washington’s New Cold War reviewed by ‘Morning Star’)

A chilling account of the development of US nuclear strategy (Washington’s New Cold War reviewed by ‘Morning Star’)

February 20, 2024

‘John Bellamy Foster’s contribution, “Notes on Extremism for the Twenty-First-Century Ecology and Peace Movements,” is a chilling account of the development of US nuclear strategy. Carefully, he explains the shift in strategic thinking inside US governing circles. In the period before the end of the first cold war, the consensus was that the relative balance in nuclear weaponry meant that the US could not guarantee a victory in a nuclear war with the USSR…. In this context we can understand the eastward expansion of NATO from Bill Clinton to Joe Biden; the Maidan coup and promotion of an anti-Russian government in Ukraine; and the refusal to offer Russia security guarantees last year or peace negotiations this year.’

Newsletter sign-up

Keep up to date with all the latest socialist news from MR