The great Trinidadian intellectual CLR James was an anti-colonial fighter, radical historian, cricket expert, Marxist theoretician, Melville scholar, playwright, and novelist. David Austin talks about James's life, ideas, and wide-ranging influence, from Caribbean and African anti-colonial and post-independence struggles to the Caribbean diasporic New Left in Canada.

Where do issues of environmental justice, privatization, police repression, and popular resistance come together? In the case of the tumultuous garbage struggles in Italy's polluted Campania region. Marco Armiero describes the struggles, which he argues are ultimately about power (and its abuses) and democracy (and its absence). Also, Jerry Levy stars in Howard Zinn's play Marx in Soho.

Some nations' populations do better than others. They are, on average, healthier, and they live happier lives. Why is this? Is it because some countries are richer, or because their residents have higher living standards? In a new book, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett show that higher levels of health and social problems occur in societies with greater income inequality.

What role does urbanization play within the surplus-generating dynamics of capitalism? And what part do cities play in fueling or abating economic crises? Pioneering Marxist geographer David Harvey talks about 19th century Paris and New York City in the 1970s and how neoliberalism has shaped the city.

When Barack Obama was elected, many labor activists had great hopes for a turnaround for the union movement, which has been shrinking alarmingly over the past several decades. But nearly a year into Obama's presidency, things don't look so bright. Longtime labor organizer and journalist Steve Early talks about the state of unions in the midst of economic upheaval, as well as the legacy of sixties radicals in the labor movement today, union democracy, and conflicts within the movement itself.

Terrorists, we are told, threaten our freedom and democracy. What does this kind of rhetoric ignore, and what kind of governmental violence does it justify? Matthew Carr calls attention to a tradition, beginning in the 19th century, of using violence against symbolic targets to achieve a political victory. He also discusses the Mau Mau in Kenya and the counterterrorism initiatives of the Reagan era.