Cultural Capital: politics

Fred Halliday, the writer and academic who, in the last two decades of his life, became one of the most interesting and heterodox voices on the internationalist left, died last week. Our good friend Anthony Barnett has written a tribute to Halliday over at Open Democracy:

He was a like a one-man international: dedicated and passionate in the cause of justice; ... read more

This week's Critics is a cinema special, so in honour of the occasion we have compiled a list of the 10 greatest political films. Tell us: do you agree with the list below? Which films would make your top ten?

All the President's Men, dir: Alan J Pakula (1976)

This real-life dramatisation of how the Watergate scandal was exposed makes the NS list not just because it details the work of the ... read more

Next issue's Critics will be a film special, so in honour of this we have conducted a completely un-scientific poll of NS staff to find the greatest political movies. "Political" was taken in its broadest sense - the only stipulation being no documentaries. You'll have to wait until Thursday's magazine to find out the top ten, but for now here's the longlist.

Tell us in the comments thread below: which films ... read more

To mark its 60th birthday, the Political Studies Association is compiling a list of the greatest ever political songs.

As you can see below, its longlist is a varied beast, ranging from Verdi's opera Aida, to the righteous Afrobeat of Fela Kuti, to Woody Guthrie's folky "This Land is Your Land" -- the latter a favourite of US progressives in the 1950s and 1960s that had a brief resurgence in ... read more