Reclaiming Socialism Reclaiming Socialism
While honoring the legacy of American communists, a new generation of radicals has chosen to organize under the “socialist” banner.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Bhaskar Sunkara
Magna Carta Messed Up the World, Here’s How to Fix It Magna Carta Messed Up the World, Here’s How to Fix It
The “logic” of capitalist development has left a nightmare of environmental destruction in its wake.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Noam Chomsky
Is America Possible Without Empire? Is America Possible Without Empire?
Rather than sizzle or suffocate, let us get on with imagining a new America.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / William Appleman Williams and Greg Grandin
Freedom’s Song Freedom’s Song
Over The Nation’s 150-year history, each new generation of radicals and reformers has contested the promise—and the meaning—of freedom.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Eric Foner
The Plain Sense of Things The Plain Sense of Things
December 6, 1952 After the leaves have fallen, we return To a plain sense of things. It is as if We had come to an end of the imagination, Inanimate in an inert savoir. It is difficult even to choose the adjective For this blank cold, this sadness without cause. The great structure has become a minor house. No turban walks across the lessened floors. The greenhouse never so badly needed paint. The chimney is fifty years old and slants to one side. A fantastic effort has failed, a repetition In a repetitiousness of men and flies. Yet the absence of the imagination had Itself to be imagined. The great pond, The plain sense of it, without reflections, leaves, Mud, water like dirty glass, expressing silence Of a sort, silence of a rat come out to see, The great pond and its waste of the lilies, all this Had to be imagined as an inevitable knowledge, Required, as a necessity requires. This article is part of The Nation’s 150th Anniversary Special Issue. Download a free PDF of the issue, with articles by James Baldwin, Barbara Ehrenreich, Toni Morrison, Howard Zinn and many more, here. Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) published ten poems in The Nation between 1936 and 1952.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Wallace Stevens
Was Europe a Success? Was Europe a Success?
It would be intolerable to belong to a society which denied the freedom of expression.
Mar 23, 2015 / Feature / Albert Einstein
Spreading Feminism Far and Wide Spreading Feminism Far and Wide
Straight talk about essentialism, sexism, leaning in and speaking out.
Mar 23, 2015 / Feature / Betsy Reed and Katha Pollitt
The Future of a Failed State The Future of a Failed State
Nations like Haiti don’t “fail” because of their people, but because they’ve been relentlessly exploited by the more “developed” world.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Amy Wilentz
Can Women and Men Live Together Again? Can Women and Men Live Together Again?
I hope we might meet as rebels together—not against one another, but against a social order that condemns so many of us to meaningless or degrading work in return for a glimp...
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Barbara Ehrenreich
Cuba Libre Cuba Libre
Covering the island has been a central concern for The Nation since the beginning—producing scoops, aiding diplomacy, and pushing for a change in policy.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Peter Kornbluh