The actions of militant social movements in Bolivia over the past ten years, which led to the election of indigenous president Evo Morales, have heartened many radicals in Latin America and beyond. But what if Morales, and his Movement Toward Socialism, represent not a break from the past quarter-century of neoliberalism, but a reconfigured version of it? Marxist scholar Jeffrey Webber makes that assertion, tracing the recent political economy of Bolivia and analyzing the trajectory of social movements toward the ballot box.

For more than ten years, Philippe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg became part of the daily lives of two dozen homeless heroin injectors in San Francisco. Their book is an account of those individuals' experiences and relationships; a photo-ethnography of drugs, poverty, race and social exclusion; and a revealing look at the larger structural forces that operate on vulnerable populations.

Poor nations don't, or can't, devote adequate resources to improving their populations' health and well-being. Are the policies of the International Monetary Fund partly to blame for this? Rick Rowden explains how IMF dictates, and the neoliberal economic logic that ungirds them, block poor countries from developing.

For more than ten years, Philippe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg became part of the daily lives of two dozen homeless heroin injectors in San Francisco. Their book is an account of those individuals' experiences and relationships; a photo-ethnography of drugs, poverty, race and social exclusion; and a revealing look at the larger structural forces that operate on vulnerable populations.

In this second installment of Ron Hassner's talk, the U.C. Berkeley political scientist addresses, among other things, the notion that religion has motivated most of the wars, or at least the bloodiest ones, throughout history. Also included is more from an interview with the politically inquisitive Lisa Kron.

There is a great deal of debate within the Marxist left about whether the economic crisis is the result of the long-term ill health of the so-called "real economy" or if the system crashed out of its inherent volatility. Noted historian Robert Brenner argues that it has roots in an extended period of stagnation, which he elucidated in a talk at the Berkeley Sociology Colloquium titled "Prosperity and Crisis in the World Economy: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow."