Atossa Araxia Abrahamian

1 week ago | theartnewspaper.com | Atossa Araxia Abrahamian

Uncertain times have always been Switzerland’s forte. During the Reformation, the Swiss cantons offered refuge for Protestants fleeing hostilities in neighbouring Catholic states. In the 19th century, Russian exiles including Vladimir Lenin and Mikhail Bakunin took shelter in Alpine idylls. Fast-forward to the early 20th century: some 300,000 people passed through Switzerland while the Nazis ruled Germany.

2 weeks ago | thenation.com | Atossa Araxia Abrahamian

Port of Call Ships and the remaking of the global economy. The Wild Lives of Cargo ShipsA capacious new history examines the remaking of the the global economy through the story a single barge. Ad Policy Illustration by Liam Eisenberg. This article appears in the July/August 2025 issue. Ships are a trip. Virtually everything we use or consume, from Apple computers to Chiquita bananas, makes its way to us by sea.

1 month ago | dissentmagazine.org | Fred Block |Edward Ongweso Jr |Adam Tooze |Atossa Araxia Abrahamian

Can We Remake Finance? We have witnessed the destructive effects of financialization. Can the millions held in bank deposits, corporate equities, and bonds be used instead to provide for society’s most pressing needs? ▪ Spring 2025 Democracy in Default: Finance and the Rise of Neoliberalism in Americaby Brian JudgeColumbia University Press, 2024, 352 pp. The Master’s Tools: How Finance Wrecked Democracy (and a Radical Plan to Rebuild It)by Michael A. McCarthyVerso Books, 2025, 272 pp.

2 months ago | terranullius.substack.com | Atossa Araxia Abrahamian

I got back on the passport beat recently for a story about how Americans have been buying more citizenships and residence permits than any other nationality. This was completely inconceivable a decade ago, when a U.S passport was considered among the safest and best in the world. I won’t rehash the whole thing—here’s a gift link for the Atlantic article—but there’s been some big news since it came out: the European Court of Justice ruled that Malta’s “golden passport” sales were illegal.

2 months ago | nybooks.com | Atossa Araxia Abrahamian

Like all laws that govern our countries, states, and communities, international law did not fall from the sky. It was conceived and established by a small cadre of Western powers against a backdrop of imperial expansion. It rationalized decades of pillage and domination by seeing non-Western peoples as uncivilized and therefore incapable of self-government.