History
This week in history: May 13-19
13 May 2013
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: May 6-12
6 May 2013
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: April 29-May 5
29 April 2013
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: April 22-28
22 April 2013
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: April 15-21
15 April 2013
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: April 8-14
8 April 2013
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
Understanding Lincoln: An interview with historian Allen Guelzo
3 April 2013
Leading Abraham Lincoln scholar Allen Guelzo recently spoke with Tom Mackaman of the World Socialist Web Site.
This week in history: April 1-7
1 April 2013
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
The British working class and the American Civil War: 150 years since London’s St. James’ Hall meeting
By Tom Mackaman, 26 March 2013
March 26 marks the 150th anniversary of the “monster” antislavery, pro-Union meeting of British workers at St. James’ Hall in London.
This week in history: March 25-31
25 March 2013
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: March 18-24
18 March 2013
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: March 11-17
11 March 2013
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: March 4-10
4 March 2013
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week
This week in history: February 25-March 3
25 February 2013
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: February 18-24
18 February 2013
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: February 11-17
11 February 2013
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: February 4-10
4 February 2013
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
Eighty years since Hitler’s coming to power
By Peter Schwarz, 2 February 2013
Leon Trotsky drew far-reaching conclusions from the disastrous defeat of the German working class in 1933.
PBS’s The Abolitionists: Remembering the political struggle against slavery
By Tom Mackaman, 31 January 2013
The Public Broadcasting System’s The Abolitionists is a reminder that the fight against slavery in the US was a hard-fought political struggle.
This week in history: January 28-February 3
28 January 2013
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: January 21-27
21 January 2013
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: January 7-13
7 January 2013
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
150 years since the Emancipation Proclamation
By Tom Mackaman, 3 January 2013
We repost here a perspective initially posted on September 22 celebrating the 150th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s order that legally freed 4 million slaves and altered the course of the American Civil War.
This week in history: December 31-January 6
31 December 2012
This week in history: December 24-30
24 December 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: December 17 - December 23
17 December 2012
25 years ago: Wall Street insider trader sentenced to prisonIvan Boesky, 50 years old and one of Wall Street’s most successful speculators, was sentenced to three years in prison on December 18, 1987 for conspiring to file false stock trading records. Boesky was the center of a massive insider trading operation, illegally manipulating stock prices, conducting unlawful corporate takeovers and using false bookkeeping to cover up for his crimes.
This week in history: December 10-16
10 December 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: December 3-9
3 December 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
Twenty years since Deng Xiaoping’s “Southern tour”—Part 2
By John Chan, 27 November 2012
On his 1992 tour, Deng made no secret of his embrace of capitalism.
Twenty years since Deng Xiaoping’s “Southern tour”—Part 1
By John Chan, 26 November 2012
The tour became a key turning point in the process of capitalist restoration in China.
This week in history: November 26-December 2
26 November 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
An exercise in myth-making
Gough Whitlam: A Moment in History by Jenny Hocking
By Nick Beams, 26 November 2012
Whitlam's demise is presented as the downfall of a social reformer, almost totally ignoring the global context in which the 1975 Canberra Coup took place.
This week in history: November 19-25
19 November 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: November 12-18
12 November 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: November 5-11
5 November 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
Interview with historian James McPherson: 150 years since the Emancipation Proclamation
By Tom Mackaman, 29 October 2012
McPherson is professor emeritus of history at Princeton University and the author of a number of books on the Civil War, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Battle Cry of Freedom.
This week in history: October 29-November 4
29 October 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
Letters from our readers
25 October 2012
A selection of recent letters to the World Socialist Web Site.
This week in history: October 22-28
22 October 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: October 15-21
15 October 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: October 8-14
8 October 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
British historian Eric Hobsbawm (1917-2012)
8 October 2012
On October 1, noted British historian Eric Hobsbawm died at the Royal Free Hospital in London. He was 95.
Lecture at Historians’ Convention: In Defense of Leon Trotsky
By David North, 4 October 2012
We publish here the text of a lecture given at the Historians’ Convention at the University of Mainz in Germany by David North, chairman of the International Editorial Board of the World Socialist Web Site.
This week in history: October 1-7
1 October 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
Meeting in defense of Leon Trotsky at German Historians Conference
By our correspondents, 29 September 2012
David North, chairman of the international editorial board of the World Socialist Web Site, and Professor Mario Kessler, lecturer and researcher at the Center for Contemporary Historical Research in Potsdam, spoke at a well-attended meeting Thursday at the University of Mainz.
This week in history: September 24-30
24 September 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
Prelude to the Emancipation Proclamation
150 years since the Battle of Antietam
By Tom Mackaman, 17 September 2012
The Battle of Antietam, fought 150 years ago in the second year of the American Civil War, set the stage for Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.
This week in history: September 17-23
17 September 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week
This week in history: September 10-16
10 September 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: September 3-9
3 September 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: August 27-September 02
27 August 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week
This week in history: August 20-August 26
20 August 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: August 13-August 19
13 August 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: August 6-August 12
6 August 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
Sixty years since the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings
By Joseph Kishore, 6 August 2012
On the sixty-seventh anniversary of the dropping of an atomic weapon on Hiroshima, Japan by the United States, we repost here an essay originally published in 2005.
Germany: Suhrkamp Verlag publishes Robert Service’s diatribe against Leon Trotsky
By Wolfgang Weber, 2 August 2012
The circumstances surrounding Suhrkamp Verlag’s release of the German edition of Robert Service’s denunciatory biography of Leon Trotsky can only be assessed as a scandal that has tarnished the reputation of the publishing house.
This week in history: July 30-August 5
30 July 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: July 23-29
23 July 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
“The 1968 Exhibit” in Oakland: What was that year really about?
By Marge Holland, 20 July 2012
A visitor hoping to get a new perspective on the political and social significance of the year 1968 from the current exhibit at the Oakland Museum of California will find that hope unfulfilled.
This week in history: July 16-22
16 July 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: July 9-15
9 July 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
The definitive film record of the 1917 Russian Revolution
Mehring Books announces release of Tsar to Lenin in DVD format
5 July 2012
Tsar to Lenin, first released in 1937, ranks among the twentieth century’s greatest film documentaries. It presents an extraordinary cinematic account of the Russian Revolution—from the mass uprising which overthrew the centuries-old Tsarist regime in February 1917, to the Bolshevik-led insurrection eight months later that established the first socialist workers’ state, to the final victory in 1921 of the new Soviet regime over counter-revolutionary forces after a three-year-long civil war.
This week in history: July 2-8
2 July 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
Book Review:
Canadian imperialism’s intervention in the Russian Civil War
By Vic Neufeld, 30 June 2012
Benjamin Isitt has excavated an important, but long-buried historical chapter—the story of the Canadian ruling class’ intervention in the Russian Civil War and the fierce opposition it provoked among Canadian workers, including among the conscript soldiers sent to fight alongside the counter-revolutionary White armies.
Preface to Yakhot’s history of early Soviet philosophy
By Frederick Choate, 25 June 2012
Yehoshua Yakhot’s The Suppression of Philosophy in the USSR (The 1920s & 1930s) is essential reading for an understanding of the devastating impact of Stalinism on philosophy in the Soviet Union. The translator’s preface being published today provides an introduction to this new English translation.
This week in history: June 25-July 1
25 June 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
Letters from our readers
23 June 2012
A selection of recent letters to the World Socialist Web Site.
This week in history: June 18-24
18 June 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: June 11-17
11 June 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: June 4 - June 10
4 June 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
Remembering the Ludlow Massacre
Part 4: The Ludlow memorial
By Jack Hood, 1 June 2012
The World Socialist Web Site publishes the concluding installment in a series on the Colorado miners’ strike of 1913-1914.
Remembering the Ludlow Massacre
Part 3: The Massacre and the Ten Days War
By Jack Hood, 31 May 2012
The World Socialist Web Site publishes the third installment in a four-part series on the Colorado miners’ strike of 1913-1914.
Remembering the Ludlow Massacre
Part 2: The strike of 1913-14
By Jack Hood, 30 May 2012
The World Socialist Web Site publishes the second installment in a four-part series on the Colorado miners’ strike of 1913-1914.
Remembering the Ludlow Massacre
Part 1: Background to the Colorado miners’ strike of 1913-1914
By Jack Hood, 29 May 2012
The World Socialist Web Site publishes the first installment in a five-part series on the Colorado miners’ strike of 1913-1914, which culminated in the Ludlow Massacre and the Ten Days war.
This week in history: May 28-June 3
28 May 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
“Of course, Trotsky was an alternative to Stalin”
An interview with Professor Mario Kessler on the Trotsky biography by Robert Service—Part two
By Wolfgang Weber, 22 May 2012
This is the second part of a two-part interview with German historian Professor Mario Kessler on the 2009 biography of Leon Trotsky by Robert Service. Part one was posted on Monday, May 21. Professor Kessler is a co-signatory of a letter sent by 14 European sociologists and political scientists to the Suhrkamp Verlag publishing house raising grave reservations about its plan to bring out a German edition of Service’s book.
“Of course, Trotsky was an alternative to Stalin”
An interview with Professor Mario Kessler on the Trotsky biography by Robert Service—Part one
By Wolfgang Weber, 21 May 2012
This is the first part of a two-part interview with German historian Professor Mario Kessler on the 2009 biography of Leon Trotsky by Robert Service. Professor Kessler is a co-signatory of a letter sent by 14 European sociologists and political scientists to the Suhrkamp Verlag publishing house raising grave reservations about its plan to bring out a German edition of Service’s book.
This week in history: May 21-27
21 May 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: May 14-20
14 May 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: May 7-13
7 May 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: April 30-May 6
30 April 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: April 23-29
23 April 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: April 16-22
16 April 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: April 9-15
9 April 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
The Historical and International Foundations of the Socialist Equality Party (Sri Lanka)—Part 12
By the Socialist Equality Party (Sri Lanka), 7 April 2012
The World Socialist Web Site is continuing publication of The Historical and International Foundations of the Socialist Equality Party (Sri Lanka) which was adopted unanimously at the party’s founding congress in Colombo, 27–29 May 2011.
The Historical and International Foundations of the Socialist Equality Party (Sri Lanka)—Part 11
By Socialist Equality Party (Sri Lanka), 6 April 2012
The World Socialist Web Site is continuing publication of The Historical and International Foundations of the Socialist Equality Party (Sri Lanka) which was adopted unanimously at the party’s founding congress in Colombo, 27–29 May 2011.
This week in history: April 2-8
2 April 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: March 26-April 1
26 March 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
Leipzig meeting on Leon Trotsky and the defence of historical truth
300 hear David North critique Robert Service’s biography of Trotsky
By our correspondent, 19 March 2012
David North, chairman of the international editorial board of the World Socialist Web Site, spoke before a large and appreciative audience in Leipzig on his recently published book In Defense of Leon Trotsky and its critique of the biography of Trotsky by the British author Robert Service.
This week in history: March 19-25
19 March 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
Public meeting in Leipzig: Leon Trotsky and the defense of historical truth
On the controversy concerning the biography of Trotsky by Robert Service
13 March 2012
David North, author of In Defense of Leon Trotsky, will speak at this year’s Leipzig Book Fair on March 16.
This week in history: March 12-18
12 March 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
The uncertain future of Pompeii’s extraordinary ruins
By Mark Church, 6 March 2012
The ancient Roman town is in great danger due to years of under-funding and over-exploitation, producing widespread degradation and the collapse of ruins.
This week in history: March 05 - March 11
5 March 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: February 27-March 4
27 February 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: February 20-26
20 February 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: February 13-19
13 February 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
New evidence points to German police involvement in 1967 murder of student protester
By Franci Vier, 9 February 2012
New evidence suggests that Benno Ohnesorg, a student protester, was deliberately killed by police officer Karl-Heinz Kurras in 1967 during protests against a visit by the Shah of Iran.
Robert Service wins support from the extreme right in Germany
By Wolfgang Weber, 7 February 2012
The extreme right-wing weekly newspaper Junge Freiheit has weighed in on the debate over a German edition of Robert Service's biography of Leon Trotsky, wholeheartedly defending Service against the criticisms of fourteen historians and political scientists.
This week in history: February 6-12
6 February 2012
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
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