Z Magazine was founded in 1987, by two of the co-founders of South End Press (f. 1977), Lydia Sargent and Michael Albert. In the opening days, a few writers’ support was critical to the project’s success, including: Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Bell Hooks, Edward Herman, Holly Sklar, and Jeremy Brecher. Z developed into a major left-wing, activist-oriented publication that went fully online in 1995, later becoming ZNet.

In 1994, Z Media Institute was founded to teach radical politics, media and organizing skills, the principles and practice of creating non-hierarchical institutions and projects, activism, and vision and strategy for social change.

Z has remained, in broad terms: anti-capitalist, feminist, anti-racist, anti-authoritarian, anarcho-socialist, and heavily influenced by participatory economics, with much content focused on critical commentary of international relations and ecology with a heavy emphasis on vision and strategy.

Over the decades, Z has been a rich source of information about participatory vision and strategy, and a north star for many on the left.