His characters—in 1919 Ireland, 1857 India, and 1940 Singapore—intuit that the world is about to collapse. But they can do nothing to save it.
Tag: Revolution
“Everything Possible with Everything Given”
There are so many utopias. Could one be a small collective of nuns, performing their chores, far from the disasters of the 12th century?
Thelma King and the Call for Revolution
In 1963, a Panamanian assemblywoman took to Cuban radio to condemn the United States and its control of the Americas.
Rereading the Revolt
In May 1381, rebels burned documents at Cambridge, then scattered the ashes to the wind. But why were universities targeted by the rebels?
Haiti’s New Political Worlds
Throughout its history, residents of Haiti, especially those of African descent, imagined and created their own possibilities for new social worlds.
How to Evolve Past Capitalism
Economic systems are like ecosystems. In America, capitalism may be the dominant species. But other species exist there, too.
How Haiti Got Free
I vividly remember the rush I felt after my first encounter with the story of the Haitian Revolution. It was a sudden and miraculous sense that everything was not as it seemed ...
Algiers: Capital of Revolution
In 2018, it is difficult to imagine what it felt like to live through a genuinely revolutionary moment, one that connected hopes for the Third World with dreams ...
B-Sides: Alexei Tolstoy’s “Road to Calvary”
If you are a Russian writer called Tolstoy, you forever lurk in the great shadow cast by your namesake. After all, what could compare to War and Peace? Now ...
Turn, Turn, Turn
You have to feel a certain degree of pity for revolutionaries. Perhaps there is even something tragic about them. There is glamour in throwing off the old order, yes, and there is the thrill of both ...