International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

Eleni Varikas (1949-2026)

Alan Wald — 2026-01-11T17:16:33Z

Eleni Varikas, a revolutionary Marxist-Feminist French-Greek professor of political philosophy, best known for her pioneering use of the concept of gender in French research, died of heart failure in Paris in early January 2026. She was 76 years old and the life partner of Michael Löwy, the French-Brazilian Marxist sociologist and philosopher. Both were contributors to AGAINST THE CURRENT and good friends of its sponsoring organization, Solidarity.

- In Memoriam - Obituaries and appreciations / Marxism, France, Greece, Women

Patrick Michael Quinn, 1942-2025

Alan Wald — 2025-02-18T18:00:08Z

Patrick Quinn, who died on 4 January 2025 at the age of 83, was a terrific friend and political comrade for 55 years. Compared to me, he always seemed to have a larger-than-life personality. He was extroverted, gregarious, approachable, and often affable and even playful—with amazing raconteurial gifts and a more retentive memory than a herd of elephants.

- In Memoriam - Obituaries and appreciations / Obituary

Cause at Heart: Socialists & the Abolition of Antisemitism

Alan Wald — 2024-07-26T13:42:52Z

Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism By Shane Burley and Ben Lorber. Brooklyn: Melville House, 2024. 375 pages. $19.99 paperback. Zionism: An Emotional State By Derek J. Penslar New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2023. 321 pages. $21.30 paperback. The Threshold of Dissent: A History of American Jewish Critics of Zionism By Marjorie N. Feld New York: New York University Press, 2024. 279 pages. $30 hardback. Tolerance is a Wasteland: Palestine and the Culture of Denial By Saree Makdisi Oakland, California: California University Press, 2022. 228 pages. $29.49 hardback. Colonizing Palestine: The Zionist Left and the Making of the Palestinian Nakba By Areej Sabbagh-Khoury Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2023. 348 pages. $75.00 hardback.

- Reviews section / United States (USA), Israel, Reviews, antisemitism

Dead Trotskyists Society: Provocative Presence of a Difficult Past

Alan Wald — 2020-09-05T08:02:38Z

EVEN THOUGH ALLEN Ginsberg's “America” was not among the ardent verses recited in the 1989 teen drama Dead Poets Society, his 1956 anti-capitalist protest poem hurled a celebrated challenge of defiance against the stifling conformity of his native land: “When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?”

- Reviews section / United States (USA), Fourth International, Reviews

The Romance of American Communism

Alan Wald — 2020-06-29T20:25:13Z

As protests work to remake the world, the reissue of Vivian Gornickʼs The Romance of American Communism invites a new generation to reflect on what it means to live a life of political commitment—where the passionate pursuit of justice meets organized political action. The Romance of American Communism by Vivian Gornick Verso.

- Reviews section / United States (USA), Marxism, Reviews

Nicolas Calas: The Trotskyist Time Forgot

Alan Wald — 2019-02-04T08:13:09Z

Nicolas Calas (1907-88) may be the most visionary poet, art critic, museum curator, cultural historian, and lifelong Trotskyist of whom you have never heard. Writing decades before Fredric Jameson's classic The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act (1981) declared, “Always historicize!,” Calas embodied this precept in every dimension of his multifaceted career.

- Reviews section / United States (USA), Greece, Fourth International, LGBT, Reviews

Disciplined for Acting with Integrity

Alan Wald — 2019-01-09T10:19:59Z

Is the wolf of academic repression once more at the door of the University of Michigan (U-M)?

- IV528 - January 2019 / Palestine, United States (USA)

Reaching for Revolution

Alan Wald — 2015-12-25T07:34:50Z

Something magical happened when Howard Brick and Christopher Phelps joined forces to craft this enthralling account of the U.S. Left from its upsurge after World War II to the near present. The two activist scholars, noted for distinguished books of their own, orchestrate stunning erudition, rigorous argumentation, lucid language, and a cohesive narrative to address a serious and taxing topic.

- Reviews section / United States (USA), Reviews

Between the Power and the Dream

Alan Wald — 2015-09-18T16:48:44Z

Paul Le Blanc has achieved the implausible â€” he has written a concise and compelling book about a sprawling, gargantuan subject. Leon Trotsky (born Lev Davidovich Bronstein, 1879-1940) was a titan of 20th century politics, a revolutionary Marxist genius who theorized a strategy for the Russian Revolution of 1917 and functioned as its on-the-ground organizer in the capital city of Petrograd (now St. Petersburg).

- Reviews section / Marxism, Reviews

Fifty Shades of Pulp

Alan Wald — 2015-04-20T11:03:19Z

Paula Rabinowitz exquisite and startling new book about the “golden age” of U.S. pulp publishing, from the late 1930s to the early 1960s, is rightly confident in the originality of its enterprise. Gorgeously illustrated, American Pulp audaciously sets in motion at least a half-dozen crisscrossing storylines to create a new cartography of pulp performance.

- Reviews section / Reviews