Socialists in the 1920s were part of a global, interconnected network of hope and solidarity. For a brief period, the locus of this transnational movement was the Hotel Lux in Moscow, where international communists — including Irish men and women — lived, hung out, and fell in love. To really capture the hopes and desires of these disparate friends and lovers requires moving beyond dry socialist history, and into the personal lives of these friendship networks. The historian Maurice J. Casey joins us on the pod to discuss his new book Hotel Lux: An Intimate History of Communism's Forgotten Radicals. We ask all the big questions: what drew these people to Moscow? How did these people navigate questions of love, friendship, and family? And would Glen get laid in the Hotel Lux lobby? 

Support the show