Featuring Naomi Klein on how the pandemic turbocharged a far-right conspiracist politics that’s sweeping into power. This strange new world, however, is a product of an old contradiction: the need to disavow and deny a long history and awful present; the inability to make sense of the extreme violence and oppression that makes everyday Western capi…

Paul North and Paul Reitter discuss their new translation of Marx’s Capital. Nimrod Flaschenberg and Alma Itzhaky, authors of a recent article for Jacobin, talk about the vicious political culture of Israel after October 7. Behind the News, hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the …

On October 8, the Boris Kagarlitsky International Solidarity Campaign held an online conference on “Boris Kagarlitsky and the Challenges of the Left.” Although Kagarlitsky is serving a five-year sentence in a Russian penal colony, he has just published a book called The Long Retreat: Strategies to Reverse the Decline of the Left. The conference add…

Beneath the Surface features interviews with leading thinkers and activists on the important issues of the day, with a focus on deeper analysis.

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the third and final part of the epilogue to Thawra (Revolution), our epic series on the history of revolutionary Arab politics. This episode takes us from Hamas’s victory in the 2006 legislative elections, through the siege on Gaza, to October 7, the Gaza genocide, the Axis of Resistance, and Israel’s attempt…

Last October, Long Reads spoke to Rashid Khalidi, one of the leading historians of modern Palestine, about the Israeli attack on Gaza. Few people would have guessed at the time that the mass killing of Palestinian civilians would still be happening twelve months later, and now expanding into Lebanon. The interview was conducted Wednesday, October 9…

The new Netflix documentary WHAT'S NEXT: THE FUTURE WITH BILL GATES (2024) positions the Microsoft founder as "one of the good billionaires." But what are the limits to his brand of philanthropy? And how neutral and objective are these documentaries on the big streaming platforms? Luke welcomes Tim Schwab (author of The Bill Gates Problem: Reckonin…

The rise of the labor movement in the US constitutes one of the brightest spots on the political horizon. Auto workers were joined by academic workers, actors, writers, hotel workers, UPS teamsters won without striking, and union drives have hit Amazon, Starbucks, universities and other sectors. Are these union drives and strikes opening a new peri…

Rashid Khalidi, author of The Hundred Years War on Palestine, talks about Israeli settler-colonialism and its imperial patrons. Aurélie Daher looks at Hezbollah and the challenges it faces after the assassination of its leader. Behind the News, hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from …

Beneath the Surface features interviews with leading thinkers and activists on the important issues of the day, with a focus on deeper analysis.

Featuring Jake Werner on how the US and China entered into a New Cold War and why the whole world urgently needs an alternative international order that fosters great power cooperation. Read Jake’s report A Program for Progressive China Policy quincyinst.org/research/a-program-for-progressive-china-policy/#executive-summary Support The Dig at Patre…

Forrest Hylton, author of a recent piece for the London Review of Books blog, talks about wildfires in Brazil and the political impotence of Lula’s administration. Edwin Ackerman discusses politics in Mexico as AMLO hands over power to Claudia Sheinbaum, having engineered a controversial overhaul of the judiciary. Read Edwin's article, "AMLO’s War …

Beneath the Surface features interviews with leading thinkers and activists on the important issues of the day, with a focus on deeper analysis.

Yoav Peled, Professor Emeritus of Tel Aviv University, is able to speak to us again for the first time since 2023. He helps chart the evolution of Israeli politics since the October 7 attack by Hamas, which was quickly followed by Israel's devastating war on Gaza, showing total disregard for the lives of Palestinians. That war is now extending to t…

Over the last week, Israel has launched a full-scale attack on Lebanon as an extension of its campaign against Gaza. So far the air strikes have killed well over five hundred people. The attack on Lebanon has made the subject of this week’s podcast all the more relevant to the current situation. Mahdi Amel was a member of the Lebanese communist mov…

Featuring Aslı Bâli and Aziz Rana on the history of left-wing internationalism from the Third Worldist currents that powered decolonization and struggles against neocolonialism through today’s renewed politics in solidarity with the Palestinian national liberation movement. Recorded in New York at Jewish Currents Live. Support The Dig now at Patreo…

Niobe Way, author of Rebels with a Cause, talks about the emotional and social lives of boys and what they’re telling us about society. Branko Milanovic, author of Visions of Inequality, reviews what economists have said about the topic over the centuries. Behind the News, hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and thei…

Beneath the Surface features interviews with leading thinkers and activists on the important issues of the day, with a focus on deeper analysis.

Bernie Sanders delivered the keynote speech at Progressive Central 2024, a conference held at the Chicago Teachers Union building just ahead of the Democratic National Convention. The two-day event posed progressive solutions to the crises undermining contemporary society and politics — many things missing from the convention itself. The session, i…

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the second of what has become a three-part epilogue to Thawra (Revolution), The Dig's series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. This episode takes us from the disastrous Oslo Accords through the 2000 Camp David Summit and the eruption of the Second Palestinian Intifada. Then the 9/11 attacks, the War on …