Daniel Singer

Europe Correspondent

Daniel Singer, for many years The Nation's Paris-based Europe correspondent, was born on September 26, 1926, in Warsaw, was educated in France, Switzerland and England and died on December 2, 2000, in Paris.

He was a contributor to The Economist, The New Statesman and the Tribune and appeared as a commentator on NPR, "Monitor Radio" and the BBC, as well as Canadian and Australian broadcasting. (These credits are for his English-language work; he was also fluent in French, Polish, Russian and Italian.)

He was the author of Prelude to Revolution: France in May 1968 (Hill & Wang, 1970), The Road to Gdansk (Monthly Review Press, 1981), Is Socialism Doomed?: The Meaning of Mitterrand (Oxford, 1988) and Whose Millennium? Theirs or Ours? (Monthly Review Press, 1999).

A specialist on the Western European left as well as the former Communist nations, Singer ranged across the Continent in his dispatches to The Nation. Singer sharply critiqued Western-imposed economic "shock therapy" in the former Eastern Bloc and US support for Boris Yeltsin, sounded early warnings about the re-emergence of Fascist politics into the Italian mainstream, and, across the Mediterranean, reported on an Algeria sliding into civil war.

The Daniel Singer Millennium Prize Foundation was founded in 2000 to honor original essays that help further socialist ideas in the tradition of Daniel Singer.

 

Solidarity–Lest We Forget Solidarity–Lest We Forget

Those on the left who cherished the illusion that Poland would somehow vanish from the news and that Solidarity would disappear from our political consciousness have been disappoin...

Jan 2, 1998 / Feature / Daniel Singer

Bitter Hope in a Cold Climate Bitter Hope in a Cold Climate

Friday, February 15. It's getting dark. My wife, Jeanne, and I land at Okiecie, the Warsaw airport. The temperature is 19 degrees below freezing.

Jan 2, 1998 / Feature / Daniel Singer

All Power to the Soviets All Power to the Soviets

Four days that fascinated the Soviet people.

Jan 2, 1998 / Feature / Daniel Singer

After the Wall, a New Socialism? After the Wall, a New Socialism?

"The Party always arrives five minutes after the hour," one critical East Berlin Communist complained bitterly, just as events there were gathering momentum.

Jan 2, 1998 / Feature / Daniel Singer

Gorbachev–Two Steps Backward? Gorbachev–Two Steps Backward?

"Comrade democrats--in the widest meaning of this word--you have scattered. The reformers have gone to ground. Dictatorship is coming....

Jan 2, 1998 / Feature / Daniel Singer

The Stink of Money The Stink of Money

Los Angeles is not the only place perturbing the sermons of the preachers of history's end and capitalism's eternal youth.

Jan 2, 1998 / Feature / Daniel Singer

Of Lobsters and Poles Of Lobsters and Poles

Lobsters, French cookbooks assert, love to be cooked alive.

Jan 2, 1998 / Feature / Daniel Singer

Historic Moment Historic Moment

The meeting around a green table between representatives of Poland's ruling party and of Solidarity, scheduled for February 6, is a historic occasion. It marks a serious new atte...

Jan 2, 1998 / Daniel Singer

Three on Poland Three on Poland

In August 1980 the Gdansk shipyard workers astonished the world by winning the right to set up a genuinely independent labor union.

Jan 2, 1998 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Singer

Bad News for French Socialists Bad News for French Socialists

Toulouse, known as the cité rose because of the color of its walls, was the palest pink in October as the French Socialists held their congress there, the last before their...

Jan 2, 1998 / Feature / Daniel Singer

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