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The Post-Left at War & the Cultural Studies Approach to U.S. Foreign Policy & International Relations
Writing in the pages of Dissent in 2005, noted political scientist Andrei S. Markovits identifies a two-ply composite “litmus test” of left political identity in recent times: knee-jerk opposition to the United States and Israel. Since 1989/90, as Markovits observes, [a] new European (and American) commonality for all lefts—a new litmus test of progressive politics—seems [...]
Whose Left, Which War? A Comment from Jerusalem
When Gabriel Brahm suggested I write a review-essay concerning Michael Bérubé’s The Left at War, I was intrigued, both tempted and apprehensive. So I read it, and it made fascinating reading. After finishing, though, I realized that my hesitations were well founded. As I was working my way through the approximately three hundred pages of [...]
Operation New Dawn: The Iraq War Debate Seven Years Later
Seven years after the start of the war, and more than eight years since the beginning of the build-up for war, there is still, perhaps, no more controversial topic in American foreign policy than the decision to invade Iraq during the spring of 2003. American soldiers are still fighting and dying there and while it [...]
The (Heterodox) Left at Peace: Or, Breaking Up is Hard to Do
Don’t take your love away from me Don’t you leave my heart in misery If you go then I’ll be blue ‘Cause breaking up is hard to do “Breaking Up is Hard to Do,” by Neil Sedaka Michael Bérubé and Neil Sedaka share few commonalities. For one, unlike the aging crooner, the accomplished academician-cum-public intellectual [...]
For Liberalism & Thinking Politically Again: Reflections Inspired by Michael Bérubé’s "The Left at War"
Finally, a book on and from the left that constitutes, as a certain sort of Englishman might say, a “proper” bit of thinking! Or, as a certain sort of lawyer might say, an “actionable” analysis and argument, that is, a book which can serve as a basis for action—and thinking politically again. In addition to [...]
The Need for an Augustinian Left
Punished for Being Right? Writing about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq can be a frustrating experience. On the one hand, the boundaries of “reasonable debate” are so narrowly construed within the popular media as to make the discussion of any genuine alternative points of view virtually impossible; on the other, the polarized and polarizing [...]
Can the Left Govern?
I am unclear as to whether I’ve been a spy or a voyeur as I’ve read Michael Berube’s The Left at War. One thing was clear from the start—the author wanted to write this book to persuade, but not to persuade me. If each of us draws a circle containing tolerable or respectable beliefs at [...]
Cultural Studies & the “Cold War” on the Left
Michael Bérubé’s The Left at War makes an eloquent and powerful case for a reinvigorated democratic left. With rich and detailed descriptions of political and cultural debates over several decades, he explores left intellectuals’ responses to a wide range of challenges but especially 9/11 and, in its wake, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. His [...]
Toward A More Rational Left?
It would be difficult to discuss Michael Berube’s latest volume without registering a degree of ambivalence. On the one hand I am impressed by the author’s honesty, seriousness and efforts to carve out a position that allows him to retain many of his core convictions while criticizing and dissociating himself from what he calls “the [...]
MICHAEL BERUBE RESPONDS: The Left at Bay