This autumn Italian workers down shut their country in opposition to the Gaza genocide. In the United States, in contrast, labor activists wanting to take a stand in solidarity with Palestinian workers are frequently chastised for trying to involve their unions in the affairs of other countries. Yet labor historian Jeff Schuhrke illustrates that U.S. unions have long been involved in Palestine — for almost a century supporting Zionism and then the state Israel.

National Labor Network for Ceasefire

Jeff Schuhrke, No Neutrals There: US Labor, Zionism, and the Struggle for Palestine Haymarket Books, 2025

Photo by Nikolas Gannon on Unsplash

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The global rise of the authoritarian right has confounded classification and led to contentious debates on the left. Do politicians like Modi, Bolsonaro, Orban, and Trump represent an extreme form of right-wing populism? Or are they fascists, as some claim? Historian and scholar of populism and fascism Federico Finchelstein argues that we’re seeing something new — a phenomenon that blurs the lines between the two.

Federico Finchelstein, The Wannabe Fascists: A Guide to Understanding the Greatest Threat to Democracy UC Press, 2024

The post The Populist-Fascist Hybrid appeared first on KPFA.

What did the trafficking and labor of enslaved Africans do to and for the British empire? What role did slavery in the Caribbean play in capitalism’s expansion in Britain? Steve Cushion weighs in on these and other matters, including key dimensions of British abolitionism and stances taken by British elites and workers toward the U.S. Civil War.

Steve Cushion, Slavery in the British Empire and its Legacy in the Modern World Monthly Review Press, 2025

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Capitalism by its nature produces crises and, for the last century, states have responded by imposing austerity measures on the public. Governments claim it’s a bitter but necessary medicine to set economies back on track. But economist Clara Mattei argues that austerity is actually a bludgeon to entrench elite power and repress workers’ aspirations for a more egalitarian society. She looks at its origins — and that of modern economics — during the greatest existential threat to the Western capitalist order.

Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism University of Chicago Press, 2022

Forum for Real Economic Emancipation

Photo credit of Athens protest: Kotsolis

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If sanctuary and asylum policies and practices don’t do enough to protect immigrants, how is justice achieved? Ananya Roy’s focus is on how poor and vulnerable migrants are viewed and treated, and on what migrant movements are doing in the face of border regimes, migrant crackdowns, and empty humanitarian rhetoric.

Ananya Roy and Veronika Zablotsky, eds., Beyond Sanctuary: The Humanism of a World in Motion Duke University Press, 2025

Sanctuary Spaces: Reworlding Humanism

UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy

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While the Trump administration has pointedly targeted dissent at universities, sharp conflict between administrators, board members and many students, staff, and faculty have roiled colleges and universities for much longer. Economic sociologist Charlie Eaton reflects on how powerful financiers have transformed higher education well beyond elite institutions, while burdening students with high levels of debt.

Charlie Eaton, Bankers in the Ivory Tower: The Troubling Rise of Financiers in US Higher Education University of Chicago Press, 2022

Photo by Tim Alex on Unsplash

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The right insists — and has tried to legislate — that male and female are hardwired opposites, with no overlap or variation. But as biological anthropologist Agustín Fuentes illustrates, science tells a different story. He shows how sex isn’t either/or and discusses the complicated intersection of biology and culture, which are often termed sex and gender. (Full-length presentation.)

Agustín Fuentes, Sex Is a Spectrum: The Biological Limits of the Binary Princeton University Press, 2025

The post The Biological Inadequacy of the Sex Binary appeared first on KPFA.

How is it that some of the most privileged people in the world — the multimillionaire and billionaire owners of tech and finance companies — are some of the most aggrieved? Journalist Jacob Silverman reflects on the titans of Silicon Valley’s rightward turn, as well as the industry’s financing and its past and present deep connections to the military.

Jacob Silverman, Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley Bloomsbury, 2025

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What made the rights activist Bayard Rustin, who among many other things organized the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, a compelling political figure? David Stein describes Rustin’s political views, his strategic choices, and his focus on economic struggle. Honoring Rustin’s legacy, Stein asserts, means drawing on his wisdom as well as learning from his errors.

Michael G. Long, ed., Bayard Rustin: A Legacy of Protest and Politics NYU Press, 2025

The post Bayard Rustin, Movement Tactician appeared first on KPFA.

The genocide in Gaza has taken place in front of the eyes of the world with little consequence. Gilbert Achcar argues that the destruction of Gaza is a watershed moment in history, signalling the irretrievable collapse of the Western promise of the rule of law. He also discusses how the rise of the far right in Israel foreshadowed the ascendancy of the hard right in the West.

Gilbert Achcar, Gaza Catastrophe: The Genocide in World-Historical Perspective UC Press, 2025

Photo credit: Jaber Jehad Badwan

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