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Author Spotlight
Suren Moodliar is the editor of the journal Socialism and Democracy and coordinator of encuentro5, a movement-building space in downtown Boston. He is the coauthor of Dying for Capitalism: How Big Money Fuels Extinction and What We Can Do About It (Routledge, 2023).
Elizabeth Henderson is an organic farmer. She is the co-chair of the Interstate Council policy committee of the Northeast Organic Farming Association and represents the Interstate Council on the Board of the Agricultural Justice Project.
Alice Belcher Tweedy (1850–1934) was an American journalist who wrote about feminism and science. “Her work paved the way for future women in journalism.” (Source: Wikipedia)
Latest:
Woman and the Ballot
Alicia Graef is a guardian and dog meat campaigner at In Defense of Animals. A lifelong animal lover and freelance writer with a Bachelor’s degree in animal and veterinary science, Alicia has covered issues relating to animals for more than a decade.
Reynard Loki is a co-founder of the Observatory, where he is the environment and animal rights editor.
Guides
With new anthropological, biological and scientific findings, we are increasingly able to trace the outlines and fill in the blanks of our human evolutionary story. This can help us better understand the social and cultural processes that produced the world we live in now. This guide to Human Bridges explores the work of experts from the fields of human biology, human origins, and anthropology who want to contribute their individual expertise to a wider accessible body of information, and enlist in the cause to make this material a staple of education at all stages of life.
This guide explores the concept, models, and examples of the peace economy: the giving, sharing, thriving, caring economy without which none of us would be alive. A peace economy is the sharing of resources, a culture of care, and the remembrance that there is enough abundance for all of us on this planet. It is the return to a culture that understands true value and wealth come from nurturing life, love, and joy. We call it a "local" peace economy because it operates at the local level, beginning in the commons. This guide also offers ways to divest from the war economy that is destroying life and well-being on this planet.
In a democratic society, the power to address the climate crisis lies with the people. And it begins at home, our backyards, our neighborhoods and local communities.
When we think about effective climate action, there are many different factors and options to consider, from working within your local community to advance climate resiliency projects and urging the media to meet its climate commitments, to supporting the growth and popularity of climate fiction. Climate action can also be aided by reframing the climate crisis. Instead of seeing it only through a scientific lens but rather as a form of oppression by the wealthy elite or a matter of children’s rights, the climate crisis can be addressed on a systemic, sociopolitical level.
This guide explores various ways to approach climate action and activism, including concrete examples you can use in your own backyard and local community, plus success stories that can be emulated and reproduced wherever you are.
This guide will take you through examples of the regenerative, moneyless economy that is sometimes called “collaborative consumption.” The moneyless, sharing-based economy creates the opportunity to opt out of the mentality of disposability and the idea that “more is better,” both of which many of us are bombarded with from birth. The regenerative, moneyless economy provides an avenue for anyone to move away from the hoarding nightmare that has led to over-full garages and seldom-visited storage sheds, continent-sized trash islands, and enormous heaps of human waste. It does this by way of peer-to-peer systems set up for people to rent or borrow goods rather than buy and own them individually. It involves collaborative systems that supply people with the things they need, when they need them.
The guide will help readers understand the global plastic crisis from multiple angles, including the impact of plastic on human health, wildlife and the environment, the upstream forces in the lifecycle of plastics, the complex reality of recycling plastic, the unique threat posed by tiny plastic particles called nanoplastics, and how two similar cities have handled the plastic issue in different ways.
New Additions
This is a visual guide to a journey through South Africa created by the Cradle of Human Culture.
Fish are sentient beings subjected to cruelty to maximize profits for the multibillion-dollar industry.
By Vicky Bond
Factory farming has devastating environmental impacts, but there are ways we can protect our vital resources.
By Vicky Bond
Switching to organic products is an easy way to eat healthier and support the environment.
By Caroline Cox
We know from history that there are many ways we can live together—let’s explore the idea.
Classics
This article on the German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte (associated with the movement of German idealism) appeared in the Philosophical Review, Volume 16, pp. 488-505, in 1907.
Ellen Bliss Talbot was a professor of philosophy at Mount Holyoke College from 1898 to 1932. From Wikisource:
“According to Dorothy Rogers and Therese B. Dykeman… ‘[Talbot] had a successful academic career, chairing Mount Holyoke’s philosophy department for thirty-two years and teaching part-time for several years after retirement. She published just three books, all on Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1898, 1899, 1906), in addition to her considerable number of articles in the Philosophical Review, Mind, and the American Journal of Psychology. Her commitment to women’s education at Mount Holyoke was unwavering, helping to ensure that the philosophy curriculum met the expectations of her fellow academicians as philosophy established itself as a profession.’ From ‘Introduction: Women in the American Philosophical Tradition 1800–1930,’ in Hypatia 19:2 (Spring 2004): viii-xxxiv.”
From Wikipedia:
- “A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South is the first book by American author, educator, and activist Anna J. Cooper. First published in 1892, the book is widely viewed as one of the first articulations of Black feminism. The book is divided into two parts, ‘Soprano Obligato’ and ‘Tutti Ad Libitum.’ Each section contains four individual essays. This book led to the term ‘Cooperian’ being coined when speaking about Anna J. Cooper. It is considered one of the first, full-length Black feminist texts.”
- Overview
- “A Voice from the South compiles a series of essays that touched on a variety of topics, such as race and racism, gender, the socioeconomic realities of Black families, and the administration of the Episcopal Church.”
- “The book advanced a vision of self-determination through education and social uplift for African-American women. Its central thesis was that the educational, moral, and spiritual progress of Black women would improve the general standing of the entire African-American community. She says that the violent natures of men often run counter to the goals of higher education, so it is important to foster more female intellectuals because they will bring more elegance to education. She noted Black women whose accomplishments could rival those of men, including Phillis Wheatley, Sojourner Truth, Fanny Jackson Coppin, and Edmonia Lewis. Cooper advanced the view that it was the duty of educated and successful Black women to support their underprivileged peers in achieving their goals. Through this view Cooper’s style was deemed ‘Cooperian,’ as a direct comparison to other male canonical theorists. …”
- “A Voice from the South was published during a period that saw a burst of intellectual publications by Black women. Cooper’s book was published the same year as Lucy Delaney’s From the Darkness Cometh the Light; or, Struggles for Freedom, Ida B. Wells’s Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases, and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s Iola Leroy; or, Shadows Uplifted.”
The famous novel about government and business corruption in the early 20th century by muckraker author Upton Sinclair.
From Wikisource:
- “The Jungle is a 1906 novel written by author and socialist journalist Upton Sinclair. It was written about the corruption of the American meatpacking industry during the early 20th century. The novel depicts in harsh tones the poverty, absence of social programs, unpleasant living and working conditions, and hopelessness prevalent among the ‘have-nots,’ which is contrasted with the deeply rooted corruption on the part of the ‘haves.’”
From Wikipedia:
- “Woman in the Nineteenth Century is a book by American journalist, editor, and women’s rights advocate Margaret Fuller. Originally published in July 1843 in The Dial magazine as ‘The Great Lawsuit. Man versus Men. Woman versus Women,’ it was later expanded and republished in book form in 1845.”
- “The basis for Fuller’s essay is the idea that man will rightfully inherit the earth when he becomes an elevated being, understanding of divine love. There have been periods in time when the world was more awake to this love, but people are sleeping now; however, everyone has the power to become enlightened. Man cannot now find perfection because he is still burdened with selfish desires, but Fuller is optimistic and says that we are on the verge of a new awakening. She claims that in the past man, like Orpheus for Eurydice, has always called out for woman, but soon will come the time when women will call for men, when they will be equals and share divine love.”
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