CONTENTS

1. Tom Nairn: Mario and the Magician British politics under the wand of Redemption, as the new leitmotif of the party system. Similarities and contrasts between the ex-imperial states of UK and France, as New Labour shuffles towards listless re-election.
2. Benedict Anderson: Western Nationalism and Eastern Nationalism Reflections from Taiwan on the history of creole and official, linguistic and long-distance nationalisms in Asia and Europe, and their implications for China. Is there any significant difference here between East and West?
3. Achin Vanaik: The New Indian Right What is the nature of the BJP regime in Delhi—does it offer a viable formula for neoliberal rule in the subcontinent? Bigotry of the market: bigotry of the temple—is a lasting union between them possible? The obsessions and mystifications of Hindu communalism.
4. Subcomandante Marcos: The Punch Card and the Hourglass Interviewed by García Márquez and Roberto Pombo just after the EZLN’s entry into Mexico City, Marcos explains the strategy of Zapatista patience and the literary origins of a revolutionary militant.
5. Naomi Klein: Reclaiming the Commons The anti-globalization movement is the talk of the financial press. Naomi Klein asks how far it is against globalization and whether it is a movement, arguing it is better described as a broadening series of different struggles against privatization—in every sense.
6. Franco Moretti: Planet Hollywood The American film industry dominates world markets as never before. What is the geography of its grip on popular imaginations? Franco Moretti draws an international map of action films, comedies, children’s movies, dramas, with some intriguing results.
7. Adam Harmes: Mass Investment Culture Consumption has long been the umbilical bond tying labour to capital. Is this beginning to shift towards investment, as passive participation in pension funds, and active speculation in mutual funds, become a mass phenomenon in North America?
8. Michael Watts: Black Acts The hidden history of mass famines in the time of the Pax Britannica is the object of Mike Davis’s Late Victorian Holocausts. What of their post-colonial sequels, and the political lessons to be learnt from both?
9. Colette Braeckman: New York and Kigali Colette Braeckman on Linda Melvern, A People Betrayed: the Role of the West in Rwanda’s Genocide. The chilling record of American and European connivance in the slaughter of the Tutsis.
10. John Grahl: The Sway of Finance? John Grahl on Gérard Duménil and Dominique Lévy, Crise et sortie de crise: ordre et désordres néolibéraux. A Marxist exploration of the sea changes in the world economy since the seventies.
11. Terry Eagleton: Subjects and Truths Terry Eagleton on Alain Badiou, Ethics. A French conundrum: can radical universality be philosophically crossed with romantic epiphany?