In keeping with a Historiansplaining holiday tradition, we try to make sense of the various struggles and conflicts of this yearby uncovering their deeper historical contexts, including:

--the roots of the Israel/Palestine conflict in the breakdown of the Ottoman Empire;

--the precedents for the bitter House Speakership struggle;

--the gradual realignment in the international balance of power, instantiated in the expansion of BRICS;

--the geopolitical stakes of the fight over Nagorno-Karabakh; and

--the histories of labor militancy that lie behind the strikes in Hollywood and Detroit

See my appearance on the Katie Halper show to discuss the travails of Zionism and Palestine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VL_EzoyY17A

Corrections: I wrote my article for Yale Journal of Law and Humanities (“In the American Tempest”) in 2022, not 2021; The Screen Writers Guild, the precursor of the WGA, was founded in 1920, not the 1930s.

Image: Palestinians harvesting wheat, Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, 2020, by Rizek Abdeljawad / Xinhua

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