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How to Get the International Monetary Fund to Think
Marek Slusarczyk, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Vijay Prashad and Grieve Chelwa On 8 July 2025, the IMF published a brief blog post...

The Left Chapter
3 days ago5 min read


Questioning the Corporation
From trading posts to tech empires, corporations continue to grow in strength. Without reform, their power may soon eclipse public...

The Left Chapter
Aug 813 min read


The Enclosure of the Commons and the War Economy: A Feminist and Anti-Colonial Critique
The war economy relies on the enclosure of the commons. By reclaiming the commons, we can build a world based on cooperation, ecological...

The Left Chapter
Jul 317 min read


Lustrous Surfaces: Easy on the Eyes, Easy on the Nervous System
The attraction to luster is rooted in our evolutionary history and has persisted among prehistoric artifacts, ancient civilizations, and...

The Left Chapter
Apr 119 min read


What Was It Like for Our Sapiens Ancestors to Meet and Mix With Cousin Species?
Between 50,000 and 35,000 years ago in Eurasia, the disappearance of hominin species or their biocultural assimilation with anatomically...
Michael Laxer
Mar 167 min read


A New Military Strategy of French Neocolonialism in Africa: Reorganizing Under the Cover Retreat
Left parties of West Africa warn that announcements of withdrawal of troops by France-backed regimes in its former African colonies are...
Michael Laxer
Jan 2711 min read


Why Is Prehistory Inspiring So Many Artists?
What draws us to such a distant and long-gone time? A fruitful relationship has always existed between prehistory (a scientific...
Michael Laxer
Oct 25, 202410 min read


The ‘Blue Economy’ Myth: We Have to Stop Thinking the Ocean Can Be Run Like a Business
Protecting the Earth’s oceans is problematic when profit is the leading concern. kees torn, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/lic...
Michael Laxer
Oct 19, 202418 min read


A Circular Economy
Latino community members in Southern California use the tanda system for mutual financial support. By Damon Orion Between 1942 and 1964,...
Michael Laxer
Sep 23, 20245 min read


"A historic legacy for a struggle that continues": On the 100th anniversary of the birth of Amílcar Cabral
Paulo Raimundo, General Secretary of the PCP at the event -- image via the PCP September 12 marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of...
Michael Laxer
Sep 17, 20249 min read


The Surprising Ways Inventions and Ideas Spread in Ancient Prehistory
You can learn a lot about humanity from the first technological revolutions of more than 10,000 years ago. By Brenna R. Hassett, Human...
Michael Laxer
Sep 10, 20244 min read


Keys to Building Human Bridges to the Past
Human technologies have continued to evolve exponentially since the end of the Paleolithic: today we are using them to learn more about...
Michael Laxer
Sep 8, 20246 min read


Sanitation in Namibia Is a Catastrophe for Its People and Environment
More than a million Namibians lack adequate access to toilets, resulting in one of the world’s highest rates of open defecation. A couple...
Michael Laxer
Aug 30, 202423 min read


Scale up Mpox Response, Health Groups Urge
By Global News Service Thousands across the African continent have been infected with the Mpox virus, resulting in hundreds of deaths and...
Michael Laxer
Aug 27, 20241 min read


One out of 11 people in the world and one out of every five in Africa faced hunger in 2023
The UN's 2024 edition of “The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World” (SOFI) report was released July 25 and included many...
Michael Laxer
Jul 30, 20242 min read


Procter & Gamble, Mondelēz, and Nestlé Are Among 10 of the Leading Consumer Brands Driving Global Deforestation
Despite corporate commitments, deforestation rates remain high, and community land conflicts continue. Activists protest P&G's role in...
Michael Laxer
May 20, 20249 min read


Seeing Red: Our Ancient Relationship With Ocher and the Color of Cognition
Extensive ocher use reflects the culture and cognitive abilities of early humans, who inherited an affinity for red from primate...
Michael Laxer
May 3, 20246 min read


Banks and Investors Are Fueling a Global Biodiversity Crisis
Commercial financial flows to the forest-risk commodity sectors are driving the majority of tropical deforestation. By Laurel Sutherlin...
Michael Laxer
Apr 28, 202410 min read


Why Culture Is Not the Only Tool for Defining Homo sapiens in Relation to Other Hominins
We need a broad comparative lens to produce useful explanations and narratives of our origins across time. An ancient skull excavated...
Michael Laxer
Apr 12, 20247 min read


Discarding Old Theories on the Path to Finding the First Humans Outside Africa
Spectacular archeological finds reveal the true past of the first Europeans. Atapuerca, Gran Dolina excavation -- Malopez 21, CC BY-SA...
Michael Laxer
Mar 6, 20246 min read
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