This year marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of
Three Soldiers, the first celebrated novel by the prolific American novelist John Dos Passos (1896-1970). The writer is probably best known for his epic
U.S.A., a trilogy of novels experimental in form and highly critical of American capitalism and culture.
Three Soldiers can be held up to
U.S.A. and seen as the work of a younger Dos Passos, one who is still finding his novelist’s voice, but the earlier novel is itself an accomplished work worthy of a reader’s attention in 2021.
John Dos Passos
View of downtown Spokane circa 1911.
Though it may be hard to imagine today, Spokane was once a hotbed of labor radicalism. And for a month November of 1909 all eyes of the nation were trained on the city for outlawing speaking in public. Hundreds of men and women who came to the city to challenge the seemingly un-American policy were thrown in jail. Well before 1909, the West had ceased being the land of opportunity advertised in railroad circulars; the fertile farmland and hillsides filled with gold had long since been locked up by big business. The thousands of immigrants, then, were left to working whatever wages were available. Thus the tension between labor and capital a tension as old as the idea of private ownership came out West.
Among the best pieces of media released in 2020 is the book “Reaganland” by Rick Perlstein, an examination of “America’s right turn,” as the subtitle describes.
The book’s four-word title and subtitle, surely one of the shortest you’ll find published in 2020, is the perfect pitch for a book that uses no unnecessary words in mining the most interesting gems from its subject matter.
Perlstein’s ability to make every word count would receive praise from William Strunk Jr. himself if he were alive to enjoy it, and at more than 900 pages without a word wasted, the book is a concentrated blast of the culture and politics of late-1970s America.
American workers denounce police raid on COVID-19 whistleblower Rebekah Jones
The WSWS is publishing statements of support for data scientist and COVID-19 whistleblower Rebekah Jones, whose Florida home was raided last week in response to her efforts to expose the spread of the pandemic in Florida and in K-12 schools across the United States. We urge our readers to
. Let us know your occupation, what city and state you work in, and whether we can use your name or if you’d prefer to remain anonymous.
Last week, Florida state police carried out a fascistic raid on the home of Rebekah Jones, a prominent data scientist and COVID-19 whistleblower. Jones was targeted because she has been outspoken against the homicidal policies of Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis and the Trump administration, who have been enforcing the back-to-work and back-to-school drive that have produced the present record upsurge of the pandemic throughout the US.
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