Noah Hawley’s new FX series, Alien: Earth, draws on the best of the sci-fi horror franchise to suggest humanity’s future might offer more than mere survival. Still from Alien: Earth. (FX) After two decades of clumsy crossovers and fumbling retreads, fans of 20th...
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Private Equity Is Coming for Public Utilities
While extending its tentacles elsewhere, private equity has mostly stayed away from electric utilities because they often don’t yield quick returns. A BlackRock subsidiary’s campaign to take over a regional utility in Minnesota suggests that is changing. BlackRock CEO...
Cloud is a Techno-Thriller for the Age of Online Hustle Culture
The internet has robbed the world of much of its mystery and replaced it with the jaded cynicism of online grifters. Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s film Cloud explores this bleak world dominated by people who just can’t log off. Masaki Suda stars in Cloud, 2024. (Nikkatsu/Tokyo...
How Rome’s Rulers Tried to Stamp Out the Right to Protest
Present-day attacks on the right to free assembly have a long history behind them. For centuries, the rulers of ancient Rome tried to stop its people from organizing to defend their interests, but protest kept resurfacing despite their best efforts. Guillaume-Guillon...
Indonesia’s Rulers Are Whitewashing the Crimes of Suharto
In the 1960s, the Indonesian dictator Suharto was responsible for one of the twentieth century’s bloodiest political massacres. Under the rule of Prabowo, the country’s government is suppressing the memory of Suharto’s crimes while vilifying the Left. A soldier...
The Many Lives of James Baldwin
James Baldwin has become the literary pinup of a generation. In 2025, he is everywhere: his most famous quotations stamped on viral infographics while his face is sold on mugs, t-shirts, and tote bags. The Fire Next Time has become a bestseller on both sides of the...
Growing Old in a Time of Neoliberalism
The French sociologist Didier Eribon’s memoir Returning to Reims defined how a generation came to understand what he called “the hidden injuries of class.” Originally published in 2009, when the rise of the far right was still only a looming threat, not the defining...
Want to End the EV Culture Wars? Make EVs Affordable.
Culture warriors and industry lobbyists have turned electric vehicles into a proxy battle for deeper anxieties about class, control, and who might be left behind in a green economy. But most people just want a car they can afford. The cultural and political war over...
Brutalism Is Back
Not everyone is excited about the resurgence of brutalism. But the rise of neobrutalist projects shows how the polarizing architectural style can also be a pragmatic use of scarce resources. An architectural style is always a mirror of its time. In a digital and...
When Genocide Denial Is the Norm
Genocide scholar Martin Shaw argues that ending Israel’s genocide in Gaza and isolating Israel on the international stage must become the cause of every country that claims to represent human values. Starving Palestinians including women and children holding pots wait...
Is This the End of MAS?
Bolivians head to the polls on Sunday amid a spiraling economic crisis and the total collapse of the Movement Toward Socialism. A right-wing victory could bring neoliberal austerity back to Bolivia, unleashing a new cycle of social unrest. Led by former president Evo...
Steven Rose Brought His Science and Socialism Together
Major social upheavals are typically accompanied by similar upheavals in the dominant ideas in society. This is as true of science as of other ideological spheres. The English Revolution of 1642–49, a key event in the transition from feudalism to capitalism, was...