In 2004, the great historian and activist Howard Zinn introduced a seemingly incongruous pair to each other: his “Hollywood Agent,” Paul Alan Smith, and his dear friend, Tiyo Attallah Salah-El, a black man in a harsh Pennsylvania prison, serving life on what Tiyo describes as “Slow Death Row.” There followed an unprecedented correspondence between the two men, one that illuminates how profound friendships can grow out of unimaginable places. More

Drawing on rich traditions of radical social thought, Roediger disavows the thinly sourced idea that the United States was, for much of its history, a “middle class” nation and the still more indefensible position that it is one now. The increasing immiseration of large swathes of middle-income America, only accelerated by the current pandemic, nails a fallacy that is a major obstacle to progressive change. More

In this substantially expanded edition of his earlier book, The Monster at Our Door, the renowned activist and author Mike Davis looks at the COVID-19 pandemic now sweeping the world. More

People’s Power provides a persuasive critique of a market-led transition to renewable energy. It surveys the early development of the electric grid in the United States, telling the story of battles for public control over power during the Great Depression. More

Bernie Sanders’ tilt at the US presidency has come under fire from an establishment that derides his social democratic policies as alien to the American way. But, as Ted Hamm reveals in this engaging and concise history, the sort of socialism Bernie advocates was commonplace in the Brooklyn where he grew up in the 1940s and 50s. More

It’s tough being an author these days, and it’s getting harder. A recent Authors Guild survey showed that the median income for all published authors in 2017, based solely on book-related activities, was just over $3,000, down more than 20% from eight years previously. Roughly 25% of authors earned nothing at all. Price cutting by retailers, notably Amazon, has forced publishers to pay their writers less. A stagnant economy, with only the rich seeing significant income increases, has hit writers along with everyone else. More

In this successor to his bestselling The Rise of Islamic State, which was translated into 16 languages, and the widely-acclaimed The Age of Jihad, prize-winning foreign correspondent Patrick Cockburn provides a clear-sighted and closely-observed account of the Middle East wars conducted by Donald Trump during the first term of his presidency. More

Building from his acclaimed anthology Tales of Two Americas, beloved writer and editor John Freeman draws together a group of our greatest writers from around the world to help us see how the environmental crisis is hitting some of the most vulnerable communities where they live. More

An Inheritance for Our Times is a reader that includes original essays in the form of both personal accounts and intellectual arguments from activists and theorists advocating a democratic socialist outlook. More