Spencer Beswick
@spencerbeswick.bsky.social
Historian of anarchism, labor, and the left in the Americas / Postdoctoral Associate at Cornell's Humanities Scholars Program / Views my own, not my employer's
Pinned
Empty Hands History – Spencer Beswick
emptyhandshistory.com
I updated my website emptyhandshistory.com after letting it lie fallow for over a year. It's easiest way to find links to all of my publications, including the two peer reviewed journal articles and a book chapter that I published in 2024. As always, DM me for PDFs of anything!
Nietzsche: "To be sure, we need history . . . we need it for life and for action, not for the easy withdrawal from life and from action . . . We only wish to serve history to the extent that it serves life."
February 10, 2026 at 6:13 PM
Nietzsche: "To be sure, we need history . . . we need it for life and for action, not for the easy withdrawal from life and from action . . . We only wish to serve history to the extent that it serves life."
Marx: "If the product of labour does not belong to the worker, if it confronts him as an alien power, this can only be because it belongs to some *other man than the worker.* If the worker's activity is a torment to him, to another it must be *delight* and his life's joy."
February 9, 2026 at 8:09 PM
Marx: "If the product of labour does not belong to the worker, if it confronts him as an alien power, this can only be because it belongs to some *other man than the worker.* If the worker's activity is a torment to him, to another it must be *delight* and his life's joy."
Remember when One Battle After Another came out and conservatives scoffed at the Hollywood fantasy of federal troops violently occupying a city against a scrappy "woke" resistance defending undocumented immigrants? Well, *gestures broadly.*
January 25, 2026 at 8:00 PM
Remember when One Battle After Another came out and conservatives scoffed at the Hollywood fantasy of federal troops violently occupying a city against a scrappy "woke" resistance defending undocumented immigrants? Well, *gestures broadly.*
Reposted by Spencer Beswick
"Antifa are the real fascists" they repeat, as they send masked paramilitary forces door to door to terrorize and ethnically cleanse the nation.
January 16, 2026 at 1:36 AM
"Antifa are the real fascists" they repeat, as they send masked paramilitary forces door to door to terrorize and ethnically cleanse the nation.
I hope the seven House Democrats who voted to fund ICE this week are haunted by the shame for the rest of their lives.
January 24, 2026 at 11:47 PM
I hope the seven House Democrats who voted to fund ICE this week are haunted by the shame for the rest of their lives.
Conservatives, you don't have to support masked federal agents executing people in the streets and going door to door terrorizing people in their homes. You know in your hearts it isn't right, and it's time to say it. It's not too late.
January 24, 2026 at 8:13 PM
Conservatives, you don't have to support masked federal agents executing people in the streets and going door to door terrorizing people in their homes. You know in your hearts it isn't right, and it's time to say it. It's not too late.
In the 1960s, the right called MLK a race-baiting communist who hated white people. After he was killed, they spent a few decades pointing to him as a model of protesting "the right way." Now, they're moving back to branding him as a race-baiting communist who hated white people.
January 19, 2026 at 5:30 PM
In the 1960s, the right called MLK a race-baiting communist who hated white people. After he was killed, they spent a few decades pointing to him as a model of protesting "the right way." Now, they're moving back to branding him as a race-baiting communist who hated white people.
"Antifa are the real fascists" they repeat, as they send masked paramilitary forces door to door to terrorize and ethnically cleanse the nation.
January 16, 2026 at 1:36 AM
"Antifa are the real fascists" they repeat, as they send masked paramilitary forces door to door to terrorize and ethnically cleanse the nation.
At Texas A&M you can no longer teach woke anti-Western ideology like ...*squints*... Plato.
From an email to one of our faculty members....
Not even Plato can escape censorship at Texas A&M!
Not even Plato can escape censorship at Texas A&M!
January 6, 2026 at 11:35 PM
At Texas A&M you can no longer teach woke anti-Western ideology like ...*squints*... Plato.
So many people's lives are getting measurably so much worse because of health insurance costs skyrocketing. Republicans and centrist Dems have no real solution. It's such a perfect time to push Medicare for All, a hugely popular policy that would transform everyone's lives.
January 6, 2026 at 11:31 PM
So many people's lives are getting measurably so much worse because of health insurance costs skyrocketing. Republicans and centrist Dems have no real solution. It's such a perfect time to push Medicare for All, a hugely popular policy that would transform everyone's lives.
At this point, it's hard to see January 6th as anything but a 21st century Beer Hall Putsch. First as tragedy, then as farce.
January 6, 2026 at 5:33 PM
At this point, it's hard to see January 6th as anything but a 21st century Beer Hall Putsch. First as tragedy, then as farce.
The developing line on Venezuela in some online MAGA spaces is that this regime change effort will work because--unlike Iraq and Afghanistan--there are no Muslims there. Truly incredible justification of a new war by the "peace president," no notes.
January 5, 2026 at 4:30 PM
The developing line on Venezuela in some online MAGA spaces is that this regime change effort will work because--unlike Iraq and Afghanistan--there are no Muslims there. Truly incredible justification of a new war by the "peace president," no notes.
Learning about the history of US imperialism in Latin America radically changed my understanding of our country. I think most Americans truly have no idea, in part because it is completely ignored or whitewashed in school. Violent regime change has been the norm for a long time.
January 5, 2026 at 12:09 AM
Learning about the history of US imperialism in Latin America radically changed my understanding of our country. I think most Americans truly have no idea, in part because it is completely ignored or whitewashed in school. Violent regime change has been the norm for a long time.
Looking forward to the panel I'm on at the American Historical Association conference in January, "Spaces and Places of Convergence in 20th-Century American Radicalism"! I'll be talking about a series of anarchist gatherings in the 1980s that helped build a continental movement.
December 20, 2025 at 6:51 PM
Looking forward to the panel I'm on at the American Historical Association conference in January, "Spaces and Places of Convergence in 20th-Century American Radicalism"! I'll be talking about a series of anarchist gatherings in the 1980s that helped build a continental movement.
I don't need Spotify wrapped to tell me that my top genre this year was, once again, White Dudes Yelling About Their Big Feelings.
December 11, 2025 at 8:12 PM
I don't need Spotify wrapped to tell me that my top genre this year was, once again, White Dudes Yelling About Their Big Feelings.
When Eugene Debs met Emma Goldman:
"Debs expressed views which Emma Goldman found very much like her own. Finally she exclaimed, 'Why, Mr. Debs, you're an anarchist!' Debs then clasped her hand and said, 'Not Mister, but Comrade; won't you call me that?'"
"Debs expressed views which Emma Goldman found very much like her own. Finally she exclaimed, 'Why, Mr. Debs, you're an anarchist!' Debs then clasped her hand and said, 'Not Mister, but Comrade; won't you call me that?'"
December 11, 2025 at 2:51 PM
When Eugene Debs met Emma Goldman:
"Debs expressed views which Emma Goldman found very much like her own. Finally she exclaimed, 'Why, Mr. Debs, you're an anarchist!' Debs then clasped her hand and said, 'Not Mister, but Comrade; won't you call me that?'"
"Debs expressed views which Emma Goldman found very much like her own. Finally she exclaimed, 'Why, Mr. Debs, you're an anarchist!' Debs then clasped her hand and said, 'Not Mister, but Comrade; won't you call me that?'"
Reposted by Spencer Beswick
You might think from the headline that this is a story about a trans kid suffering medical consequences from a large drug dose but nope! It is just an interview with an estranged father who is angry that his child happily transitioned.
archive.ph/Tmthz
archive.ph/Tmthz
December 10, 2025 at 7:20 PM
You might think from the headline that this is a story about a trans kid suffering medical consequences from a large drug dose but nope! It is just an interview with an estranged father who is angry that his child happily transitioned.
archive.ph/Tmthz
archive.ph/Tmthz
Why in the world is Verizon texting me trying to get me to open a high yield savings account? Something seriously funky is going on with financial institutions in this country.
December 8, 2025 at 4:03 PM
Why in the world is Verizon texting me trying to get me to open a high yield savings account? Something seriously funky is going on with financial institutions in this country.
Howard Zinn: "Civilization has failed on two counts: it has perverted the natural resources of the earth, which have capacity to make our lives joyful, and also the natural resources of people, which have potential for genius and love."
December 4, 2025 at 6:47 PM
Howard Zinn: "Civilization has failed on two counts: it has perverted the natural resources of the earth, which have capacity to make our lives joyful, and also the natural resources of people, which have potential for genius and love."
Blatant extortion.
ICYMI | Northwestern University has reached an agreement with the Trump administration to restore federal research funding. The university will pay the federal government $75 million and enact various changes. In return, the federal government will lift a freeze on millions... https://bit.ly/4ol8uzP
![“[S]uing would have cost time and money that we believe the university could not risk... [and the settlement was] the best path forward for us to be able to turn the page.” from Henry Bienen, interim president of Northwestern University, in a video message on YouTube.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:q5jyiiwq2phghraetyo2tkvt/bafkreibys33nc55cugvclpgmsrnm75ftxgxggdeis45522aqre4rp5alki@jpeg)
December 2, 2025 at 9:34 PM
Blatant extortion.
Reposted by Spencer Beswick
*Radical Histories of Palestine and Palestinians* – A new Call for Proposals from Radical History Review. Abstract proposals due November 30, 2025: www.radicalhistoryreview.org/radical-hist...
November 3, 2025 at 3:15 PM
*Radical Histories of Palestine and Palestinians* – A new Call for Proposals from Radical History Review. Abstract proposals due November 30, 2025: www.radicalhistoryreview.org/radical-hist...
Everything is getting worse and worse and worse and it's not gonna get better and boy does that suck.
November 25, 2025 at 6:40 PM
Everything is getting worse and worse and worse and it's not gonna get better and boy does that suck.
literally fuck off
November 25, 2025 at 5:57 PM
literally fuck off
Reposted by Spencer Beswick
one of the coolest things about ChatGPT is how you can actually just never use it. you can fill your whole entire life with simply not once using it. it's incredible.
November 25, 2025 at 4:15 PM
one of the coolest things about ChatGPT is how you can actually just never use it. you can fill your whole entire life with simply not once using it. it's incredible.
So sick of an internet dominated by bots, ads, and AI. Everything feels like a scam. It wasn't always this way. It could be different. The problem is that the internet is set up to extract value from users rather than provide a service. Which is to say, the problem is capitalism.
November 24, 2025 at 7:16 PM
So sick of an internet dominated by bots, ads, and AI. Everything feels like a scam. It wasn't always this way. It could be different. The problem is that the internet is set up to extract value from users rather than provide a service. Which is to say, the problem is capitalism.