Lead essayist Donna Murch writes that, “historically, the division between ‘dope’ and medicine was the race and class of users.” By using the concept of “racial capitalism” to examine the opioid crisis alongside the War on Drugs, Murch brings an otherwise familiar story into new territory. To understand the twisted logic that created the divergent responses to drug use—succor and sympathy for white users, prison and expulsion for people of color—Murch shows how a racialized regime of drug prohibitions led Purdue Pharma to market OxyContin specifically to whites.

Alongside Murch, contributors consider how racial capitalism helps us understand the history of international banking, the commodification of black masculinity, the buying and selling of women’s eggs, Michelle Obama’s dubious advice to black youth, and the workings of affirmative action at elite universities.

“Rural spaces,” writes Elizabeth Catte, author of What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia, “are often thought of as places absent of things, from people of color to modern amenities to radical politics. The truth, as usual, is more complicated.”

With activists, historians, and political scientists as guides, Left Elsewhere explores the radical politics of rural America—its past, its priorities, and its moral commitments—that mainstream progressives overlook. This volume shows how these communities are fighting, and winning, some of the left’s biggest battles. From novel health care initiatives in the face of the opioid crisis to living wages for teachers, these struggles do not fall neatly into the “puny language,” as Rev. William Barber says, of Democrat or Republican. Instead they help us rethink the rural–urban opposition at the heart of U.S. politics. The future of the left, this collection argues, could be found elsewhere.

“All history,” writes Maximillian Alvarez in his contribution to this issue, “is the history of empire—a bid for control of that greatest expanse of territory, the past.” Evil Empire confronts these histories head-on, exploring the motivations, consequences, and surprising resiliency of empire and its narratives. Contributors grapple with the economic, technological, racial, and rhetorical elements of U.S. power and show how the effects are far-reaching and, in many ways, self-defeating. Drawing on a range of disciplines—from political science to science fiction—our authors approach the theme with imagination and urgency, animated by the desire to strengthen the fight for a better future. Purchase your copy today.

From the breast pump to freezing women’s eggs, new technologies have long promised to “liberate” women, but the results are often uneven, freeing some women while worsening the oppression of others. Once and Future Feminist explores the intersection of feminism and tech with guest editor Merve Emre. The collection explores the advantages and disadvantages technology offers feminism from all angles: sexual, biological, economic, and political. In the age of Silicon Valley, these issues are more pressing than ever, and this collection pushes readers to consider not only whether emancipatory feminism is possible today, but also what it might look like.

The poems in What Nature were not written on Walden Pond. They were not written because poetry can save the Earth. If they are a far cry from last century’s nature poetry, it is because “nature” today is a far cry from sanctuary or retreat. These poems are not at ease and there is no place left to retreat. They are themselves far cries: urgent calls for rethinking our place on an imperiled planet.

April 4, 2018, marked the fiftieth anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s death. This collection grapples with his enduring legacy. Though he is widely celebrated as a national hero—martyr to an inspiring dream about our country's largest possibilities—many younger Americans now greet his name with suspicion, viewing him as an essentially conservative figure. These essays offer critical engagement in place of canonization, recovering—and scrutinizing—the profoundly radical nature of King's political, moral, and religious thought.

Reader Katia Fowler says, “Global Dystopias is shattering and marvelous. I am in awe. Thank you for ripping my heart out and cradling it at the same time.” Publishers Weekly writes, “[S]ome of the best contributions . . . include nuanced examinations of gender-based oppression. In Charlie Jane Anders’s astoundingly good ‘Don’t Press Charges and I Won’t Sue,’ the narrator is forced . . . into a body she doesn’t want and didn’t ask for. Maria Dahvana Headley’s ‘Memoirs of an Imaginary Country’ explores the connection between the colonization of women’s bodies and colonization of non-Western countries. Tananarive Due’s ‘The Reformatory’ reveals a single moment of horrific abuse in a young black boy’s . . . life. Maureen McHugh’s ‘Cannibal Acts’ and Nalo Hopkinson’s ‘Waving at Trains’ are excellent stories of viral apocalypses and their aftermath.”

Many of the critical issues of our time—from clean water to health care to schools—are about public goods, things that are owed to the members of a democratic society. In the United States, these goods are endangered and access to them is constricted by class and race. Against this background, Trump’s nearly empty White House stands as a symbol of the crisis our democracy faces. In this Forum we consider public goods: what they are, how to provide them, how to ensure equitable access. The debate about public goods is at heart a debate about what it means to be an American. What is at stake is not only what we owe to each other but who we are.

Technology and the loss of manufacturing jobs have many worried about future mass unemployment. It is in this context that basic income—a government cash grant given unconditionally to all—has gained support from a surprising range of advocates, from Silicon Valley to labor. Our contributors explore basic income’s merits, not only as a salve for financial precarity, but as a path toward racial justice and equality. Others, more skeptical, see danger in a basic income designed without attention to workers’ power and the quality of work. Together they offer a nuanced debate about what it will take to tackle inequality and what kind of future we should aim to create.

Walter Johnson, Harvard historian and author of the acclaimed River of Dark Dreams, urges us to embrace a vision of justice attentive to the history of slavery—not through the lens of human rights, but instead through an honest accounting of how slavery was the foundation of capitalism, a legacy that continues to afflict people of color and the poor. Inspired by Cedric J. Robinson’s work on racial capitalism, as well as Black Lives Matter and its forebears—including the black radical tradition, the Black Panthers, South African anti-apartheid struggles, and organized labor—contributors to this volume offer a critical handbook to racial justice in the age of Trump.

“In time of crisis, we summon up our strength,” wrote poet Muriel Rukeyser. This collection gathers poems—from the eve of the twenty-first century to the month following Trump’s election—to mark a moment of political rupture, summoning the collective strength found in the languages of resistance and memory, subversion and declamation, struggle and hope. Poetry is a counterforce. We offer these poems to readers as Rukeyser did—“not walls, but human things, human faces.”

Donald Trump claims to "cherish women," but his gendered insults suggest otherwise. But what if there was a clear rationale behind his apparent doublethink? In our forum "The Logic of Misogyny," Kate Manne argues that misogyny is not about hating women. It is about keeping them in “their place”—below men—in the patriarchal order. Vivian Gornick, Christina Hoff Sommers, Tali Mendelberg, Doug Henwood, Imani Perry, Susan J. Brison, and Amber A'Lee Frost respond. Michael Bronski argues that if gay liberation hadn't happened—with its impractical desire to upend society—then the gay rights movement would never have won its legal battles. Mike Konczal challenges a guiding principle of conservatives, pointing out it is absurd to believe that problems created by global deregulation can be solved at the local level. Donna Murch shows how personal debt is once again landing people in jail, even though debtors' prison was outlawed more than a century ago. Also: Anne Fausto-Sterling asks how soon is too soon for trans kids to transition; Colin Dayan on the cruelties the South doles out to animals, children, and black folks; and Oded Na’aman describes how Israel tricks itself into believing war is necessary. Plus new poetry by John Ashbery, Rae Armantrout, Charif Shanahan, Rebecca Liu, and more.

Public education should make citizens, not workers. So says Danielle Allen in our new forum—and she thinks that the focus on STEM can't accomplish that goal, only the humanities can. Respondents include Deborah Meier, Clint Smith, Michel DeGraff, and Rob Reich. Alex de Waal, one of the nineties' leading humanitarian reporters, has had a radical change of heart: almost all humanitiarian interventions go horribly wrong, he mourns, so maybe we're doing more harm than good. Samuel Moyn worries we focus too much on rights and not enough on duties, and James G. Chappel proposes that our obsession with secularism has made religion more inscrutable—and out of control—than ever. Plus a celebration of 2016's 92Y/"Discovery" Prize–winning poets, and new work from John Ashbery, Jorie Graham, and Brenda Hillman.

Black Lives Matter! Robin D. G. Kelley leads this issue's forum by suggesting that grassroots political education would strengthen the black student movement, while also questioning the movement's reliance on the language of personal trauma. Michael Eric Dyson, Randall L. Kennedy, Christopher Lebron, Aaron Bady, and others respond. Major Jackson offers a surreal, arresting take on police violence in his new poem, "Ferguson." Anne Fausto-Sterling notes how racist stereotypes are embedded in medical school curricula, and Peter James Hudson critiques recent books on slavery and capitalism for overlooking the vital contributions of radical black scholarship. Joy James reviews a long-lost nineteenth-century memoir that reveals the roots of black incarceration, and Carina del Valle Schorske notes the importance of the historical archive (or lack thereof) to black American poets. Plus, Sarah Hill offers a tribute to her teacher, Sidney Mintz, who made vital contributions to scholarship on the black Atlantic; Stephen Kinzer interviews Andrew J. Bacevich about how we will lose the war for control of the Greater Middle East; Jonathan Kirshner skewers Niall Ferguson's voluminous new book on Kissinger; and erica kaufman celebrates Eileen Myles's skill as a poet.

In our first forum of 2016, Jedediah Purdy accepts that there is no longer a nature independent of human meddling—so how then, he asks, do we make that condition more democratic? Alisa Reznick reports on how clean water is being used as a weapon in Syria's civil war, and David G. Victor questions whether university divestment from fossil fuels really brings us closer to a greener future. In an arresting personal essay, Jesse Maceo Vega-Frey reports on an experiment in the humane raising and butchering of pigs. Also, Nick Bromell asks whether we should enshrine dignity as a critical democratic right, Robert Archambeau reviews two new collections from Charles Simic, and more. Join us in the New Nature!

Paul Bloom leads a forum discussion on why we crave luxury goods. Martin O'Neill writes about what the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn means for the future of the Radical Left. Jenny Hendrix reviews Sven Birkerts's new book on the perils of "smart" devices, and Nathan Robinson warns that bad forensic science is ruining criminal justice. Plus, Cathy Park Hong announces the winner of our annual poetry contest, Safiya Sinclair.