The Porcupine takes its name from an early publication of William Cobbett, the great English radical journalist and social critic, whom Marx called "the greatest pamphleteer England has ever possessed." "As a writer," he wrote elsewhere, "he has not been surpassed." We have no intention of doing so. But, we will make every effort to emulate his disdain for sham, his contempt for the arrogant use of power and his passionate and unapologetic faith in the will of the people.

The Porcupine seeks to shed light on the uncomfortable realities of the world and on the forces that have shaped them. It seeks to strengthen our collective efforts to address and challenge the root-causes of poverty, inequality and injustice, locally and globally. As that struggle necessarily transcends nation and locality, ethnicity and religion, The Porcupine hopes to add its voice to the unifying radical internationalism that is on the rise around the world, as people on every continent seek to reclaim land, rights and their very futures from the agents of the global capitalist economy.

The editor of The Porcupine is Eric B. Ross. US-born and trained as an anthropologist, he has lived and taught in the States, Great Britain and, most recently, The Netherlands. After 27 years abroad, he now lives in the suburbs of Washington, DC. His most recent book is The Malthus Factor: Poverty, Politics and Population in Capitalist Development (Zed).

The managing editor and web master is Reuben Ross, currently a student at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England.