Norman Birnbaum is professor emeritus at the Georgetown University Law Center. He was on the founding editorial board of New Left Review and is a member of the editorial board of The Nation. His memoir, From The Bronx to Oxford and Not Quite Back, was published in January 2018.
Their recent publication tells us nothing we didn’t already know, or could easily have inferred, from his biography.
Tony Benn died at age 88 last week—and was immediately and fulsomely praised by many well able to restrain their enthusiasm for him in his lifetime.
He risked his life in the underground against the Nazis, helped rebuild German social democracy after the war and laid the groundwork for reconciliation of East and West. Lebe wohl, Willy!
Can they survive another grand coalition with Angela Merkel’s CDU—and is it too late to rejuvenate the party that once subordinated capitalism to the public good?
Doris Lessing responded to the contradictions of our time by facing them with unmatched courage.