May 4-5, 2013: Crowd-sourced Communism

[As we celebrate another May Day, hopefully with no riots, the week’s series has highlighted some AmericanStudies connections to the legacy of Herr Marx. For this crowd-sourced post, fellow AmericanStudiers have given according to their abilities—but I still need your thoughts, comrades!]

An anonymous commenter responds to the week’s series, and particularly my Monday focus on empathy, by noting the importance of our also keeping in mind historical facts such as that “in the 1932-1933 Soviet Forced Famine in Ukraine, at least 3 million died.” As he or she adds, “just don’t mention communism with any sympathy on the Lower East Side” of New York, especially in the neighborhood of Little Ukraine.

Rachel Bright follows up Thursday’s post, highlighting this Franklin Institute exhibit on spies.

This review of a recent biography of Marx seems pretty relevant to the week’s series as well.

Special series starts Monday,

Ben

PS. What do you think?