https://znetwork.org/category/contenttype/review/ Independent Left News, Analysis, Vision and Strategy Thu, 19 Feb 2026 02:56:25 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://znetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/cropped-Z_logo_512-32x32.png https://znetwork.org/category/contenttype/review/ 32 32 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/fighting-autocracy-and-corruption/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/fighting-autocracy-and-corruption/#respond Thu, 19 Feb 2026 16:50:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1294926 Backroom Bargaining: Racketeering and Rebellion in New York City’s Labor Unions By: Jane Latour University of Illinois Press, 2026 My first contact with labor reformers in New York City was nearly 50 years ago. Like many rank-and-file dissidents, before and since, these critics of union corruption were prophets without honor in their own local. Teamsters [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/fighting-autocracy-and-corruption/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/politics-is-everywhere-so-why-do-people-feel-so-powerless/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/politics-is-everywhere-so-why-do-people-feel-so-powerless/#respond Tue, 17 Feb 2026 17:15:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1294847 Halfway through his acclaimed novel Perfection, Vincenzo Latronico inserts a particularly revealing episode. It is 2015 and Anna and Tom are both graphic designers, working in one of Berlin’s trendiest neighborhoods. Their comfortable life is suddenly interrupted, however, when a picture surfaces on social media and soon goes viral. It is an image of Alan Kurdi, [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/politics-is-everywhere-so-why-do-people-feel-so-powerless/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/whose-story-gets-to-be-heard/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/whose-story-gets-to-be-heard/#respond Mon, 16 Feb 2026 18:42:52 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1294802 What is the purpose of a story? To change something or to protect it? Is it similar to the purpose of white lies and half-truths? In the documentary film Kikuyu Land, Kenyan journalist Bea Wangondu is entangled in the possibilities. Wangondu co-directed with Andrew H. Brown, who also shot and edited the film, to investigate the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/whose-story-gets-to-be-heard/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-activists-should-take-friendship-seriously/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-activists-should-take-friendship-seriously/#respond Mon, 16 Feb 2026 18:06:11 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1294788 My whole life, I’ve regarded friendship as a happy by-product of activism — a reward for all the sacrifice, but little more. That view got a jolt when my friend Frida Berrigan, reviewing my new book about the post-9/11 antiwar movement, wrote: “Varon conveys that the real strength of the peace movement . . . is friendship.” [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-activists-should-take-friendship-seriously/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/under-capitalism-democracy-stops-at-the-economy/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/under-capitalism-democracy-stops-at-the-economy/#respond Tue, 10 Feb 2026 17:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1294581 The dominant mode of socialist analysis of contemporary capitalism very often focuses on its corruption or decay through financialization, monopolization, deregulation, or corporate influence over politics. Financial parasitism, the extraction of rent by “technofeudal” overlords, and political corruption are seen as aberrations that have sapped capitalism of its competitive vitality, resulting in exploding economic inequality [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/under-capitalism-democracy-stops-at-the-economy/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/one-battle-after-another-and-the-seduction-of-violence/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/one-battle-after-another-and-the-seduction-of-violence/#comments Mon, 02 Feb 2026 21:27:52 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1294303 After sweeping the Golden Globes and other awards, One Battle After Another has 13 Oscar nominations. Given the film’s clear relevance, if it does end up a winner, those who created it will probably do more than thank their agents, publicists, partners, and pets. They’ll likely talk about the times we’re living in, as every [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/one-battle-after-another-and-the-seduction-of-violence/feed/ 1 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/you-dont-miss-what-doesnt-exist/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/you-dont-miss-what-doesnt-exist/#respond Mon, 02 Feb 2026 21:04:30 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1294294 “Anthropause” is an amazing word and the latest book about it is an eye-opener. Stan Cox’s Anthropause: The Beauty of Degrowth (2026, Seven Stories Press), does what far too few degrowth books do – it first focuses readers’ attention to the positive experiences we could enjoy in a society less dedicated to producing unnecessary stuff. It [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/you-dont-miss-what-doesnt-exist/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/when-the-world-said-no-to-war/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/when-the-world-said-no-to-war/#respond Fri, 30 Jan 2026 16:23:24 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1294173 Every day we face a constant stream of government lies. Illegal and immoral use of military force. Defiance of international law and global public opinion. Ravenous hunger for oil, and US wars to feed it. Kidnapping and torture. Rampant Islamophobia and anti-immigrant hysteria. Repression of dissent and demonization of dissenters. Killing of women and children [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/when-the-world-said-no-to-war/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/review-of-james-douglass-martyrs-to-the-unspeakable/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/review-of-james-douglass-martyrs-to-the-unspeakable/#comments Wed, 21 Jan 2026 19:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293726 James Douglass, longtime antinuclear activist and author of the bestselling JFK and the Unspeakable, has written his life’s work. Martyrs to the Unspeakable builds on the work of its predecessor, which detailed Kennedy’s turn toward peace during the Cold War and his resulting death at the hands of his own government. Martyrs broadens and deepens [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/review-of-james-douglass-martyrs-to-the-unspeakable/feed/ 2 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/justified-and-the-killing-of-renee-nicole-good/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/justified-and-the-killing-of-renee-nicole-good/#respond Mon, 12 Jan 2026 13:00:00 +0000 One of my kids recommended to me that I watch the program titled Justified. I was prejudiced against it because it appeared to be one of those Clint Eastwood “cops as killers” programs that have so warped American culture into one celebrating violence and war while somehow pretending to preach the gospel of Jesus, though [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/justified-and-the-killing-of-renee-nicole-good/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-obscenities-of-inequality-a-review-of-trading-game-by-gary-stevenson/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-obscenities-of-inequality-a-review-of-trading-game-by-gary-stevenson/#respond Mon, 29 Dec 2025 18:58:01 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292884 Gary Stevenson has risen to fame on the back of his 2024 Sunday Times bestseller, Trading Game; an edgy rags to riches tale. Boy grows up poor in the London suburb of Ilford, in view of the Canary Wharf skyline. He progresses from a paper round to DFS stores selling bedwear. He and his family [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-obscenities-of-inequality-a-review-of-trading-game-by-gary-stevenson/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/late-review-of-sncc-the-new-abolitionists-by-howard-zinn/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/late-review-of-sncc-the-new-abolitionists-by-howard-zinn/#respond Thu, 25 Dec 2025 16:50:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292745 Howard Zinn’s book on SNCC was written in 1964. Yet, here I am writing a review in 2025, a good 60 years later. It feels appropriate to do so. There is of course the usual wisdom about paying attention to history for its relevance today, especially the history of social movements. There is also the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/late-review-of-sncc-the-new-abolitionists-by-howard-zinn/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/life-on-earth-past-present-and-future/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/life-on-earth-past-present-and-future/#respond Tue, 23 Dec 2025 17:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292660 This article is a summary of Roy Ratcliffe’s recently released book ‘Life on Earth’ (Past, Present and Future)’. Of all the millions of species of life that have existed on earth over billions of years of cellular and multi-cellular evolution, only the members of one species have consciously and systematically done the following. Over-polluted seas, lakes, rivers, [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/life-on-earth-past-present-and-future/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/we-cant-understand-capitalism-without-understanding-slavery/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/we-cant-understand-capitalism-without-understanding-slavery/#respond Thu, 18 Dec 2025 16:50:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292493 Ever since Eric Williams published his book Capitalism and Slavery, which demonstrated to those more inclined to weigh evidence rather than ideology that slavery was a crucial prop to the Industrial Revolution, there has been a continual pushback. There is no surprise in that. The fiction that capitalism is a “natural” manifestation of “human nature” that [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/we-cant-understand-capitalism-without-understanding-slavery/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-hope-of-the-future-is-still-in-rojava/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-hope-of-the-future-is-still-in-rojava/#respond Thu, 11 Dec 2025 16:54:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292255 Forged during the Syrian war, Rojava’s experiment in radical self-government offers a lens for examining how the left sustains hope under siege. How should the progressive left respond to the experiment of Kurdish-led revolutionary Rojava in north-east Syria with its commitment to direct democracy, ecological sustainability, women’s rights and multi-ethnic inclusivity? It is a question that is [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-hope-of-the-future-is-still-in-rojava/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-audacity-of-hope-denied/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-audacity-of-hope-denied/#respond Mon, 24 Nov 2025 17:56:37 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291619 In a letter to Richard Nixon dated January 16, 1970, his domestic advisor Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote the following regarding the White House approach to the situation of Black people in the United States: “The time may have come when the issue of race could benefit from a period of “benign neglect.” The subject has [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-audacity-of-hope-denied/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/coalition-socialism/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/coalition-socialism/#respond Mon, 17 Nov 2025 18:16:34 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291358 Reviewed: Citizen Marx: Republicanism and the Formation of Karl Marx’s Social and Political Thoughtby Bruno LeipoldPrinceton University Press, 2024, 440 pp. The Political Theory of Liberal Socialismby Matthew McManusRoutledge, 2024, 268 pp. In June, somewhere between 4 and 6 million Americans showed up to No Kings Day demonstrations in more than 2,100 cities and towns across [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/coalition-socialism/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/tupac-shakur-was-forged-in-a-revolutionary-political-culture/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/tupac-shakur-was-forged-in-a-revolutionary-political-culture/#respond Mon, 17 Nov 2025 17:53:17 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291348 Review of Words for My Comrades: A Political History of Tupac Shakur by Dean Van Nguyen (Doubleday, 2025). Who was Tupac Shakur? Depending on who you ask, you’ll get a plethora of responses. He was hip-hop’s greatest icon. He was a violent thug who was convicted of sexual abuse. He was the voice of the oppressed. He [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/tupac-shakur-was-forged-in-a-revolutionary-political-culture/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/have-we-entered-a-new-feudal-era/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/have-we-entered-a-new-feudal-era/#respond Thu, 13 Nov 2025 16:49:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291231 Ever since the Internet was born, along with Big Tech, in the 1990s, the world has had a sense that we have entered a new era in global political economy. Many have tried to place a finger on what this transformation is all about. Perhaps the most famous among these critical thinkers is Shoshana Zuboff, [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/have-we-entered-a-new-feudal-era/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-jakarta-method-washingtons-anticommunist-crusade-and-the-mass-murder-program-that-shaped-our-world-a-book-review-essay/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-jakarta-method-washingtons-anticommunist-crusade-and-the-mass-murder-program-that-shaped-our-world-a-book-review-essay/#respond Wed, 12 Nov 2025 19:10:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291140 Vincent Bevins has written a riveting and quite disturbing book about the military coup that took place in Indonesia in 1965 and its aftermath that spread to 23 different countries, and that while receiving some critical acclaim by journalists and scholars, has been generally overlooked by the US left.  It is time to revisit it. [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-jakarta-method-washingtons-anticommunist-crusade-and-the-mass-murder-program-that-shaped-our-world-a-book-review-essay/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/lessons-from-the-movement-to-stop-the-war-on-terror/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/lessons-from-the-movement-to-stop-the-war-on-terror/#respond Thu, 06 Nov 2025 17:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1290930 As I read Jeremy Varon’s new book “Our Grief is Not a Cry for War: The Movement to Stop the War on Terror,” I wanted to scream: We were right!  The peace movement predicted and forewarned the cataclysm that followed the opening salvos of the “global war on terror.” We foresaw the decades of war, [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/lessons-from-the-movement-to-stop-the-war-on-terror/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/displacement-governance-and-the-illusion-of-integration-a-review/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/displacement-governance-and-the-illusion-of-integration-a-review/#respond Sun, 02 Nov 2025 17:01:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1290745 Displacement Governance and the Illusion of Integration offers an inspiring and insightful contribution to contemporary issues of migration, marginalization and integration. By thoroughly examining a series of timely theoretical issues such as vulnerability, deprivation, and the dominant narrative regarding the integration of migrant newcomers in contemporary urban environments, Shearer Demir’s approach succeeds in both highlighting [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/displacement-governance-and-the-illusion-of-integration-a-review/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-silent-victim-warfares-enduring-environmental-scars-across-the-middle-east/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-silent-victim-warfares-enduring-environmental-scars-across-the-middle-east/#respond Wed, 29 Oct 2025 18:17:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1290594 The US military is a behemoth that covers nearly the entirety of the planet, and the extent of the damage it is doing to the environment is difficult to comprehend. The military emits more carbon pollution than any other single institution and, depending on which estimates you trust, more than a vast number of countries [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-silent-victim-warfares-enduring-environmental-scars-across-the-middle-east/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/review-of-jeff-schuhrkes-no-neutrals-there-us-labor-zionism-and-the-struggle-for-palestine/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/review-of-jeff-schuhrkes-no-neutrals-there-us-labor-zionism-and-the-struggle-for-palestine/#respond Tue, 28 Oct 2025 16:37:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1290554 Jeff Schuhrke’s latest book, No Neutrals There:  US Labor, Zionism, and the Struggle for Palestine, is a major contribution by a US scholar and activist in support of Palestinians’ struggle for life, liberation, and independence.  Written specifically to advance the struggle against Zionism against especially the top level “leadership” of the AFL-CIO and the US [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/review-of-jeff-schuhrkes-no-neutrals-there-us-labor-zionism-and-the-struggle-for-palestine/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/review-of-kathryn-bigelows-a-house-of-dynamite/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/review-of-kathryn-bigelows-a-house-of-dynamite/#respond Tue, 28 Oct 2025 16:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1290550 In a 1988 lecture entitled ‘What is the writer saying?’, Anthony Burgess asked the audience to imagine literature as a kind of line. At one end of this line, he says, we have didactic literature, and at the other end we have pornography. Art, as realised in the works of, say, James Joyce and Virginia [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/review-of-kathryn-bigelows-a-house-of-dynamite/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/pervasive-impunity/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/pervasive-impunity/#respond Mon, 20 Oct 2025 15:33:12 +0000 In early 2017 my colleagues at The Intercept and I published a series of articles about the FBI’s counterterrorism policies. The articles were based on leaked documents that showed the wide latitude the bureau gave itself to surveil students, journalists, and civil society, and detailed its policies on the use of informants. The FBI, the documents specified, targeted Muslim [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/pervasive-impunity/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/hollywood-rediscovers-the-bomb/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/hollywood-rediscovers-the-bomb/#respond Mon, 13 Oct 2025 18:08:40 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1289894 As the nuclear threat once again dominates the headlines, the nuclear blockbuster has returned to screens. Following the success of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, Kathryn Bigelow’s A House of Dynamite reminds us that the atomic bomb is not mere history. Equal parts political thriller and apocalyptic horror, the film compels viewers to imagine the unimaginable, refusing [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/hollywood-rediscovers-the-bomb/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/will-teachers-save-our-democracy/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/will-teachers-save-our-democracy/#respond Tue, 07 Oct 2025 16:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1289626 With nearly every day presenting more evidence of America’s eroding democracy, it’s understandable to wonder whether a countervailing force will come forward to ensure—to paraphrase Lincoln—that the government of, by, and for the people will endure. Mass protests with catchy themes like “Hands Off” and “No Kings” seem to offer more symbolism than substance. Court [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/will-teachers-save-our-democracy/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/what-can-we-do-with-the-rights-delight-in-pain/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/what-can-we-do-with-the-rights-delight-in-pain/#respond Sun, 21 Sep 2025 11:37:19 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1288829 If you’ve seen the breakout Netflix series The Hunting Wives, you know that American right-wing authoritarianism is nothing if not libidinally charged. Throughout this murderous pulp series, which takes place in deep Texas, a cabal of wealthy white women parade their privilege by making love to their hunting rifles and engaging in copious amounts of sapphic [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/what-can-we-do-with-the-rights-delight-in-pain/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/mother-mary-comes-to-me/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/mother-mary-comes-to-me/#respond Thu, 11 Sep 2025 15:57:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1288422 Imagine an okay High School Tennis player trying to comment usefully, publicly, on Carlos Alcaraz’s play. Or imagine a squirrel made suddenly talkative trying to comment on the life of a lion. Difficult, and I feel like that. There are many people who are exceptionally smart, witty, funny. Many people who are internally diverse. Such [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/mother-mary-comes-to-me/feed/ 0