Mike Davis, acclaimed Marxist activist, journalist, and historian, dies at 76 (2022)
November 2, 2022 12:37 PM CDT By Matt Bokovoy Marxist historian Mike Davis Mike Davis, the acclaimed Marxist activist, journalist, and historian, died at his home in San Diego on Oct. 25, after a years-long fight against esophageal cancer, with his wife Alessandra Moctezuma, the Chicana artist, curator and scholar, by his side. Davis was a prolific Marxist…
Multimillionaire counterrevolutionary: Mark R. Levin’s new book ‘American Marxism’ (2021)
October 20, 2021 9:24 AM CDT By Matt Bokovoy Every thuggish movement needs its cover of respectability and even scholarly, theoretical pillars. This is the role played by Mark R. Levin, whose newest tome ‘American Marxism’ provides squawking points for the radically neo-fascist, lumpen Republican Party. | Screengrab from Fox News Every thuggish movement needs its cover of…
History’s Strangler: Ultranationalism and the War on Ukraine (2022)
If there is one grim lesson to learn from Russia’s war on Ukraine, it would be the danger of the spread of ultranationalism in Eastern Europe. Ultranationalism differs from nationalism when a nation maintains supremacy and other control over another nation, usually by military annexation or imperialism. Ultranationalists engage in the invention of tradition…
Scholarly Publishing and Social Provision (2017)
*** I had the opportunity to contribute this piece to the “Tenured Radical” section of the Chronicle of Higher Education in 2014, however, some mitigating circumstances at work prevented me from publishing the essay. I’ve retooled it somewhat and made some updates, but it remains close to the original draft. Thanks to Heather Stauffer, my colleague,…
Strange Species: The Boomer University Intellectual (2007)
*** I had the opportunity to first publish this review essay in Reviews in American History toward the tail end of the Bush II administration, and right as the 2008 financial crisis ruined the country. I brushed it up a bit for presenting it below*** Strange Species: The Boomer University Intellectual Matt Bokovoy Eric Lott.…
The War and the Intellectuals, Revisited (2008)
*** I had the opportunity to write this paper for the 2008 Historians Against the War conference. I lightly revised it to present it here since I feel the piece is the foundation for events today dealing with Russia, Syria, and the Middle East, particularly the saber-rattling against Russia. Liberal hawks and neocons share one…
A New Historical Narrative for San Diego (2009)
*** In 2007, the Journal of San Diego History invited me to participate in a round table discussion of Mike Davis, Kelly Mayhew, and Jim Miller’s book on San Diego, published in 2003 by The New Press. I thought I would re-post it again since JSDH is published by the San Diego History Center and…
A Short History of Punk Rock – with notes on Blues and Americana ( 2017)
*** I have been reading in punk rock and music history for some time, for leisure, and I had the opportunity to draft a National Endowment for the Humanities grant for my friend Kerry Gallagher Semrad in Fall 2016. I re-purposed it a bit to feature it below.*** The subcultures of music in the…
Autonomy, the State, and Authoritarianism in the United States Presidential Election of 2016 (2017)
After the first week of the Trump administration and its rapid succession of executive orders to overturn the Obama legacy and set a right-wing, demagogic tone for the next four years, liberal Democrats, leftists of various stripes, moderate Republicans, and even some neoconservatives are currently speaking loudly and publicly about the new administration’s prerogatives…
Ghosts of the San Diego Rialto (2005)
This was first published in Jim Miller and Kelly Mayhew, ed., Sunshine/Noir: Writing from San Diego and Tijuana (San Diego City Works Press, 2005). Other contributors were Mike Davis, Roberta Alexander, Marilyn Chin, and Mark Dery. Downtown San Diego today has become the faux historical stage set for the city’s nouveau-riche and young members…
Brad Hayes, But I Did (2010)
Welcome to my new weblog! I plan on writing about some subjects I have been working on for some time, and also to feature some talks I have given over the last eight years. I hope you will enjoy my contributions and I will begin with my favorite piece of writing about my friend Brad…
Matt Bokovoy 