Over recent years, it seems ‘radical’ has become a dirty word. In the wake of the anniversary of 1968, and with books and films galore about the romance and failures of revolutionary life and thought, it seems we’re comfortable with radicalism as an object of nostalgia, but less willing to understand its contemporary legacy – and its trivialisation.

Culture Wars is exploring radicalism – past, present and future – in an attempt to understand a lived tradition as well as how certain ideas filter through the culture. Having focused on past ‘Radical Thinkers’ and the legacy of 1968, touring from Iran to Haiti, investigating the role of ideology and demise of the traditional Left, we turn towards two contemporary variants: ‘political Islam’ and the environmentalist movement. These reviews and essays constitute a critical investigation of what shapes contemporary attitudes towards the future.

Passionate people at w…w…w…war!

The interweaving of Sexby’s narrative and Angelica’s own tumultuous story means an otherwise straightforward ‘will they, won’t they’ subplot is intimately bound up with the rights and wrongs of the historical conflict.

Marxism and the Crisis

Whilst Gordon Brown and others members of the political and financial elite are talking about reviving Keynesianism, there’s also been a more encouraging renewal of interest in the ideas of Marxism.

Sieg heil Chairman Mao?

Gao provides us with a rare insight into the lively online debate in China, so different to the sense of consensus that dominates the intellectual class and the state.

Radio ‘for the people’

Tthe contradictions that arose when Romanians fought their own governments in favour of the US are more apparent now, when America has shown its actions rarely are in the interests of the countries it invades.

The accursed cultural theory, excess and the morbid imagination

Wilson sets the stage for a logical reconstruction of self loathing as it currently appears in the most advanced capitalist nation.

Lead on, Macduff: McLeadership and the real thing

Both the fetishisation of strong leadership and the reaction against it stem from a one-sided focus on leaders as personalities, and neglect of the other side of the relationship.

Radicalism then and now: what’s changed since 1968?

Today, politics has lost its meaning, and all that’s left for so-called radicals is to call for a more extreme version of what ‘politics’ is about. The form is still there, but the content has changed.

The End of Left and Right?

The end of Left and Right, if it has occurred, needs to be taken seriously. It amounts to no less than the collapse of a way of looking at, and doing, ‘politics’.

The Gates of Eden are rusting!

Don Eales recalls the political power of popular song, and asks where the voices of challenge and dissent are today.

Snow in Istanbul

Once people internalise the ideology of passivity and infectiveness, they cease to be able to understand themselves as properly political subjects.

Organised defeat? - here comes everybody

Shirky and other digital evangelists argue the rise of social media is actually a severe challenge to the elite’s hegemony and authority.

Mummy dearest

Hildegart’s tragedy may well come to occupy a niche of bizarre but instructive prominence in the intellectual history of the twentieth century.

Participation nation

As a humble citizen participating in one of these schemes, you cannot have faith that every individual will respect your views, since those who make the final decisions are not accountable to you.

Communist kitsch without conviction

Is a work of art that forges its content out of the everyday, and shows its epic potential, not infinitely preferable to fantasy tales from Middle Earth?

Psychoanalyse the psychoanalysts?

Director Astra Taylor has done a fine job with an impossible brief. Zizek is a hard man to film, and it is even harder to convey his ideas. The movie manages both; its form belies its sophistication.