Ghostlands in Granta

On my road, in my town, on my land, my neighbors took up arms. It was 1844 and 1845 and farmers in the Catskills started a socialist uprising. The violence looks much like that today. Granta published my essay on the Anti-Rent War, where people in my town aligned with the most radical elements in the US at that point, with utopian socialists like Fourier and Robert Owen and a radical group in Williamsburg Brooklyn called the National Reform Association. Their progressive vision wasn’t only for themselves but others across the US. They argued for suffrage and abolition and a 10-hour work day. The violence spread from town to town, and the past poses questions about our politics now.