New Politics (magazine)

Overview

Julius and Phyllis Jacobson were the founders and longtime co-editors of the journal, which had a political center of gravity reflective of their youthful formative experience in the Independent Socialist League of the 1940s and 1950s. During the Cold War, New Politics espoused the idea that socialism is indissoluble from democracy and freedom and argued strongly against totalitarian Communist states and authoritarian socialism as corruptions of and departures from the socialist ideal. The journal is perhaps best known for having published the seminal article by Hal Draper, "The Two Souls of Socialism," in 1966. It was also the first English-language publication to publish articles by the dissident Polish socialists Jacek Kuroń and Karol Modzelewski.

The first series of New Politics ran from 1961 through 1976, after which it ceased publication for a decade. The journal was restarted in 1986 and has been in print ever since, publishing two issues per year.

The current co-editors are Saulo Colón, Dan La Botz, Nancy Holmstrom, Jason Schulman, and Julia Wrigley, and its editorial board members are Barry Finger, Thomas Harrison, Michael Hirsch, Micah Landau, Scott McLemee, Stephen R. Shalom, Bhaskar Sunkara, Lois Weiner, and Reginald Wilson. For many years Joanne Landy was a member of the editorial board until her death in 2017.

Contributors have included Michael Albert, Bettina Aptheker, Stanley Aronowitz, Elaine Bernard, Janet Biehl, Ian Birchall, Murray Bookchin, Johanna Brenner, Stephen Eric Bronner, Paul Buhle, Eric Chester, Tony Cliff, Noam Chomsky, Bogdan Denitch, Hal Draper, Martin Duberman, Martin Glaberman, Robin Hahnel, Herbert Hill, Doug Ireland, Staughton Lynd, Sidney Lens, Nelson Lichtenstein, Michael Löwy, Manning Marable, Sean Matgamna, Paul Mattick, Kim Moody, Christopher Phelps, Adolph Reed, David Roediger, Saskia Sassen, Jane Slaughter, Immanuel Wallerstein, Stan Weir, Cornel West, B. J. Widick, Ashley Dawson, Ellen Willis, Kevin B. Anderson, Dan Georgakas, Patrick Bond, Sharon Smith, Christian Parenti, David Bacon, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Gilbert Achcar and Howard Zinn.

References

• Worcester, Kent. "New Politics," in The Encyclopedia of the American Left, 2d ed., ed. Mari Jo Buhle, Paul Buhle, and Dan Georgakas (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998): 555–556.