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The War on Iran
Issue 1
American Power
Narratives of US decline are coinciding with explosive expressions of US dominance. Are we witnessing the transition between hegemons? The official dawn of multipolarity? Or force and hubris continuous with the Cold War and the unipolar moment?
The first issue of Phenomenal World features thirteen essays and interviews on American power.
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New York City
Selected Posts
Analysis
Unstitching America
No private company is logistically capable of delivering the mail. So what does privatization of the US Postal Service mean?
Brazil
Politics of the Price Level
Newsletters
The largest private-sector employers in the United States today are a mix of retail and parcel companies that have all built out sophisticated logistical operations. In the post-war era, the largest employers were all in manufacturing, and warehousing and distribution were both seen merely as supporting long production runs. In 1962, management theorist Peter Drucker referred to distribution as “the economy’s dark continent.”
In a new monthly newsletter column, Benjamin Fong examines the employer behemoths of the twenty-first century—their business models, their management techniques, and the workers and worker organizing that populate their supply chains.
May 1, 2026
Analysis
Unstitching America
No private company is logistically capable of delivering the mail. So what does privatization of the US Postal Service mean?
The Polycrisis is a monthly column on geopolitics and climate, by Tim Sahay and Kate Mackenzie. Follow The Polycrisis on Bluesky, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and on their website thepolycrisis.org where you can find the Polycrisis podcast, Electric World Order.
May 8, 2026
Analysis
Many of the processes that are reshaping the globe find stark expression in Latin America—the extraction of key minerals for green technologies, the transformation of vast tracts of land for monocrop agriculture, the ravages of climate catastrophe, the rise of the new right, and the dynamics of Great Power competition. Amidst the mixed legacies of twentieth-century global South development, the tensions and trends of the international political economy are now concentrated in the region.
In Meridional, a monthly newsletter column, Fernando Rugitsky takes his cues from Gramsci’s “meridional questions” to situate the latest developments in a planetary context.
Sanctions
The Sanctions Age
On Agathe Demarais’s “Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against US Interests”
Who Benefits From Sanctions?
On “How Sanctions Work: Iran and the Impact of Economic Warfare” by Narges Bajoghli, Vali Nasr, Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, and Ali Vaez
More from the PW Archive
September 24, 2025
Analysis
The Anti-Climate Common Sense
How a new climate common sense was built and how Trump’s assault threatens its unraveling
March 26, 2026
Interviews
February 3, 2022
Analysis
Acute Dollar Dominance
The dollar system, original sin, and sovereign debt since the pandemic.
December 19, 2025
Analysis
May 23, 2025
Analysis
September 18, 2021
Analysis
December 20, 2022
Analysis
May 22, 2020
Interviews
December 12, 2024
Interviews
Political Investments
An interview with Thomas Ferguson on the 2024 US election
November 28, 2025
Analysis
After Boric
Assessing four years of Chile’s state-led development agenda
November 9, 2022
Analysis
A New Non-Alignment
How developing countries are flouting Western sanctions and playing the great powers off each other
June 3, 2023
Reviews
Supply-Side Coalitions
On Brent Cebul’s “Illusions of Progress: Business, Poverty, and Liberalism in the American Century”