miriam-pensack

4301 Articles by:

Miriam Pensack

Miriam Pensack is a writer, editor, and doctoral candidate in Latin American history at New York University.

Sputnik and Shed

Two photobooks documenting what could be called ‘socialist playgrounds’ reveal the differences between adults designing for children, and children designing for themselves.

Come On You Reds

A new book on the beginnings of football in the Soviet Union reveals how the Bolsheviks first regarded it as an opium of the people – and then tried to build a game of their own.

Property Will Eat Itself

The transformation of industrial spaces into clubs and then into flats in cities like Manchester has created a strange ouroboros of self-consuming development.

Make Do and Mend

However you read the statistics, the climate crisis has to mean less building. What does a future of living in old buildings hold for the future of architecture?

One Man’s Trash

In the dark days of John Major’s Britain, Channel 4’s Eurotrash took aim at Britain’s relationship with ‘the continent’ and created a low-art surrealist classic in the process.

We Have Never Been Postmodern

Stuart Jeffries’ new book charts a lively history of postmodernism from the 1970s to the millennium through a discussion of pivotal artworks, pop cultural figures, cultural theorists and political events. But are we really still living in ‘postmodern’ times?

Defining Modernist Architecture

The roots of modernist architecture are explicitly reformist and socialist – yet it continues to defy contemporary characterisation as either an elite conspiracy or a monument to unfulfilled utopia, writes Owen Hatherley.

A Letter from Dimitrovgrad

The post-war New Town in Bulgaria has just celebrated its 75th birthday. Its combination of Stalinist aesthetics and post-socialist kitsch is all that the country’s elites find shameful, but there is still life in this ‘city of the future’.

In Search of a New North

Alex Niven speaks to Tribune about his new book The North Will Rise Again – an attempt to revive a future for the North from its modernist, radical traditions.

From the Pits to the Pigeon Lofts

Pigeon racing was once understood as a pastime of the elite, but in the twentieth century it established firm roots in Britain’s mining communities – and the bird became known as ‘the poor man’s racehorse’.

Football Belongs to the Fans

The looming Qatari takeover of Manchester United underlines how football clubs are now the playthings of oligarchs and repressive regimes. It’s time to reclaim the game and fight for fan ownership.

Trade Unions Can Beat the Far-Right

The failure of politicians to address the cost of living crisis has created the conditions for a resurgence of the far-right – and we need a strong trade union movement to defeat them.

Democracy Is Under Attack

We need the Labour Party to stand up against government attacks on our rights to strike, protest and vote — but it can’t defend democracy if it doesn’t respect it within its own movement, writes Jeremy Corbyn.