Search results for ""Lawrence Wishart Ltd""

This official history of NUPE covers its years of membership expansion, growing recognition and entry onto the national industrial and political stage. From a position of near obscurity in the 1920s, NUPE grew into one of the most important forces in the trade union movement in the 1970s, playing a key role in some of the major struggles of that decade and beyond. The authors throw new light on NUPE's relationship with the Labour governments of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan (1974-79), and analyse for the first time from the union's perspective the events that became known as the 'Winter of Discontent'. They convincingly argue that accounts which hold the dispute responsible for the demise of the Labour government, and thus for opening the way for Thatcherism, are inadequate and misleading - often deliberately so; in general such accounts are based on a deprecation of public services, public service labour and the 'social wage'. These developments are discussed in relation to the role of union leadership and considerations of organisation and democracy, revealing much that will be of interest to activists and students of trade unionism alike.

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Arthur Horner (1894-1968) was a miners' leader from the 1926 general strike to his retirement as general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers in 1959. During his life he played a crucial role in the fight for a national mineworkers union, and in the development of the National Coal Board. He was a champion of the Republicans in Spain, was imprisoned several times for his views, and was in constant demand as a speaker. But it was his warmth, good humour and enthusiasm which made 'little Arthur', as he was affectionately known by his union colleagues, really memorable. Horner was a committed communist, but was also able to exercise effective leadership in a major trade union committed to social democratic principles, playing a key role in the social democratic settlement after the second world war.

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More than 2500 volunteers took the extraordinary decision to risk their lives in a foreign war, and more than 500 of them died. The book looks at their role in the key battles in Spain, including the heroic work of the medical volunteers. Drawing on contemporary photographs and images, Antifascistas documents the artistic and historical legacy of the International Brigades, and demonstrates the idealism, commitment and sacrifice of these exceptional men and women.

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Wilf Page was a champion of agricultural workers, a promoter of justice in the countryside, a rural communist councillor during the difficult cold war years and a lifelong community activist. He is best known for his role in the National Union of Agricultural Workers, and in the European Federation of Agricultural Unions, but he was also a prominent local politician in Norfolk, and was a communist councillor for Edgefield for twenty-eight years. On his death, an obituary in "The Times" accurately reported that Wilf's communism had not been of the 'big Russian bear' variety, but had been about 'the community owning the wealth'. He was a man whose tireless battle for justice lasted until the last day of his life.

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The central thesis of Feelbad Britain is that after the decades of neoliberalism the institutions and social relations on which solidarity, trust and citizenship depend have been undermined. This has left contemporary British society in a troubled and dysfunctional state, without the cohesion or confidence needed if we are to escape from recession, combat climate change and restore faith in government. The authors put forward a theoretical framework for understanding contemporary politics; and they consider what is to be done to revitalise the British left, challenge neoliberal hegemony, and develop a political project aimed at creating a greener, fairer, happier, more democratic and less divided Britain.

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During the winter months of 2002-03 there was played out the most significant and bitter industrial dispute in the UK since the miners' strike of 1984-85. There then followed a further eighteen months of protracted negotiations, overshadowed by the Government's preparations for invasion of Iraq, constant threats to ban strikes, and the passing of draconian anti-union laws. This book tells the story of the firefighters' dispute and shines a beacon on the way the New Labour Government was prepared to go extraordinary lengths - though it was not always successful - to thwart the ambitions of a relatively small and dedicated group of public servants, who were seeking pay justice after years of decline in their relative pay, despite significant increases in productivity and skill levels.

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The issue includes a discussion on Reality TV; an analysis of the Blair family's celebrity status; a debate about intimacy and what's real in 'keeping it real'; a look at cult TV fan cultures, and what it means when pop stars 'can't act'.

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This collection of essays concentrates on the work of Walter Benjamin. Topics covered include: the question of historical understanding versus historicism; Benjamin and the sources of Judaism; feminism and cultural analysis; and images in Benjamin's novels and other writings.

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Part of "The Collected Works" series, this book is the first volume of Karl Marx's famous text on the economies of capitalism, "Capital". The translation is based on the Moore and Aveling translation of 1887, but has been revised and supplemented with extensive notes. Aiming to become the definitive English-language edition of the "Collected Works" in 50 volumes, the series will eventually contain all the works of Marx and Engels, whether published in their lifetimes or since, including their complete correspondence and newly discovered works. Almost every volume contains published material published for the first time in English. The edition is organized into three main groups: philosophical, historical, political, economic and other works in chronological order; Marx's "Capital" with his preliminary versions, and works directly connected with it; and letters of Marx and Engels.

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This volume is a series of reflections about the effects on English white masculinity of Britain's history of empire, from Victorian times to the present day. The author analyzes the pathological middle-class family of Victorian times: where absent but overbearing fathers ruled with an iron rod; where mothers, their own lives hedged about with restriction, presided over a stifling and repressed domestic life; where adolescent boys were sent away to authoritarian single-sex public schools that were a cross between a monastery and an army camp. Small wonder that generations of dysfunctional men were produced, suffering from mother fixation, narcissism and many other varieties of sexual deviation. Many of these men left the motherland to act out their phantasies of domination in imperial adventures. In this mix of psychoanalytical insight and social history, Jonathan Rutherford documents the lives of some of Britain's heroes and mother's boys, including T.E. Lawrence, Rupert Brooke and, more recently and controversially, Enoch Powell. Turning to contemporary culture, he argues that the popularity of stars such as Hugh Grant is evidence of the lingering on of an attachment to the archetype of the perpetually adolescent, incoherent - and attractive to some - upper-middle-class man. This type can seem to be a little boy lost, but he will always be fierce in the pursuit of his own interests. Jonanthan Rutherford is the editor of "Identity: Community, Culture, Difference" and co-editor of "Male Order: Unwrapping Masculinity".

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A contribution to black studies, this book examines the issue of racism in modern society today.

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Rajani Palme Dutt (1896-1974) was a leading figure in the Communist Party of Great Britain from the 1920s to the 1960s. His strong links with the Comintern made him, throughout this period, a devoted - and stern - supporter of orthodoxy within the CPGB. Through an intertwining of personal and political history, this well-documented book not only tells the fascinating story of Palme Dutt's life, but also provides a key to understanding the rise and fall of communism in the 20th century. '...a remarkable political biography.' John Torode, The Independent 'Excellent, scholarly and thoughtful.' Ben Pimlott, Independent on Sunday John Callaghan is Professor of Politics at the University of Wolverhampton. He is author of The Far Left in British Politics (1987) and Socialism in Britain since 1884 (1990).

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Part of a definitive English-language edition, prepared in collaboration with the Institute of Marxism-Leninism in Moscow, which contains all the works of Marx and Engels, whether published in their lifetimes or since. The series includes their complete correspondence and newly discovered works.

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Frederich Engels (1820 1895) was a German businessman and political theorist renowned as one of the intellectual founders of communism. In 1842 Engels was sent to Manchester to oversee his father's textile business, and he lived in the city until 1844. This volume, first published in German in 1845, contains his classic and highly influential account of working-class life in Manchester at the height of its industrial supremacy. Engels' highly detailed descriptions of urban conditions and contrasts between the different classes in Manchester were informed from both his own observations and his contacts with local labour activists and Chartists. Extensively researched and written with sympathy for the working class, this volume is one Engels' best known works and remains a vivid portrait of contemporary urban England. This volume is reissued from the English edition of 1892, which was translated by noted social activist Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky (1859 1932).

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This is a drama of revolution in which Karl Marx assumes the roles of both the historian and playwright. It provides a useful analysis of a social and political crisis, so much so that it has been taken up and developed by theorists, notably Lenin and Gramsci, ever since.

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Part of a definitive English-language edition, prepared in collaboration with the Institute of Marxism-Leninism in Moscow, which contains all the works of Marx and Engels, whether published in their lifetimes or since. The series includes their complete correspondence and newly discovered works.

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Part of a definitive English-language edition, prepared in collaboration with the Institute of Marxism-Leninism in Moscow, which contains all the works of Marx and Engels, whether published in their lifetimes or since. The series includes their complete correspondence and newly discovered works.

Read more less

Part of a definitive English-language edition, prepared in collaboration with the Institute of Marxism-Leninism in Moscow, which contains all the works of Marx and Engels, whether published in their lifetimes or since. The series includes their complete correspondence and newly discovered works.

Read more less

Part of a definitive English-language edition, prepared in collaboration with the Institute of Marxism-Leninism in Moscow, which contains all the works of Marx and Engels, whether published in their lifetimes or since. The series includes their complete correspondence and newly discovered works.

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In recent years, the Freudian construction of a passive, female sexuality has been severely criticised by feminists. This book tackles the question of female fetishism and documents women's engagement in this form of sexuality. Most psychoanalytic theory excludes the very possibility of the existence of female fetishism. In the face of the wealth of evidence gathered in this book, covering a range of fetishistic practices, the authors suggest that Freudian phallocentrism has prevented analysts from seeing the evidence before their eyes. "Female Fetishism" provides a theoretical context for understanding the subject, and also collects together case material from food and advertising fetishism to the obsessional behaviour of pop fans - collecting pop paraphernalia and locks of idols' hair - and women's involvement in the world of fetish magazines and dress clubs.

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This book makes sense of New Labour by interpreting its ideas and practices as symptoms of the times in which we live. Making Sense of New Labour is an in-depth study, interpreting a wide range of material, including party political broadcasts and other election material, Tony Blair's speeches, and internal policy discussion. Finlayson disentangles and analyses the different elements of New Labour's political philosophy, which he argues is in large part a reflection of the culture and politics of contemporary capitalism. As such the party inevitably finds itself managing a status quo rather than driving genuine change. The book considers: - Labour's marketing strategy and susceptibility to consumer culture - the rhetoric and practice of modernisation - the place of the Third Way in the context of recent British political and intellectual history - the meaning of the 'knowledge economy' and significance of welfare-to-work - Labour's conception, and management, of the state Alan Finlayson is a Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Wales Swansea.

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Interviews with left feminist academics on feminism.

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This book examines how Western photographic practice has been used as a tool for creating Eurocentric and violent visual regimes, and demands that we recognise and disrupt the ingrained racist ideologies that have tainted photography since its inception in 1839. Decolonising the Camera trains Mark Sealy’s sharp critical eye on the racial politics at work within photography, in the context of heated discussions around race and representation, the legacies of colonialism, and the importance of decolonising the university. Sealy analyses a series of images within and against the violent political reality of Western imperialism, and aims to extract new meanings and develop new ways of seeing that bring the Other into focus. The book demonstrates that if we do not recognise the historical and political conjunctures of racial politics at work within photography, and their effects on those that have been culturally erased, made invisible or less than human by such images, then we remain hemmed within established orthodoxies of colonial thought concerning the racialised body, the subaltern and the politics of human recognition. With detailed analyses of photographs – included in an insert – by Alice Seeley Harris, Joy Gregory, Rotimi Fani-Kayode and others, and spanning more than 100 years of photographic history, Decolonising the Camera contains vital visual and written material for readers interested in photography, race, human rights and the effects of colonial violence.

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This is the story of the historic 21 week equal pay strike at Trico-Folberth in Brentford, West London, in 1976. TRICO - A Victory to Remember is indispensable to understanding how the 1970s marked a turning point in making women's rights a central focus for the labour movement, casting aside the minor role women were allocated in the mainstream. No longer could women's rights be given mere lip service. The strike was trail-blazing in many ways. It was the first time American-style picket-busting convoys of lorries and scab labour had been used against strikers who were mainly women. The employer, Trico, relied on legal loopholes in the new Equal Pay Act in presenting the case to a tribunal, which was boycotted by the strikers' trade union, the AUEW. However, despite the tribunal ruling in favour of the employer, the union nevertheless successfully negotiated equal pay. This achievement was unique, and led towards the Equal Pay Act being amended in 1983. The story of the strike, illustrated with stunning archive photos mostly unseen for over forty years, charts the women's campaign from its beginnings to their final victory, including anecdotes from some of those involved. There is a brief history of the struggle for equal pay in Britain, and a chapter on the relevance of the Trico dispute to today's society. Author Sally Groves worked at Trico from 1975 - 1980 on assembly and then as a trainee tool setter. She was one of the women on strike in 1976, and became the Trico AUEW Strike Committee's Publicity Officer. This book will inspire women everywhere; trade unionists and anyone suffering as a result of the gig economy. It will be of particular interest to those studying and researching issues of women's equality.

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This biography tells the extraordinary story of Mary Turner (1938- 2017), the Brent dinner lady and trade union activist who rose to become president of the GMB union and chair of the Labour Party. Proud, fiery and determined when it came to standing up to exploitative employers, the privileged and the powerful; practical, compassionate and nurturing when it came to her members, the disadvantaged, or the victims of injustice: Mary Turner (1938-2017) was president of the GMB union for twenty years. This book tells the story of her life and, through it, charts the recent history of the British labour movement: from the People’s Marches for Jobs in 1981 and 1983, through the miners’ strike, to more recent struggles against cutbacks in local government, the depredations of multinational corporations, and the scourge of austerity. The book outlines Mary Turner’s instrumental role in the survival of the GMB as an independent union, and its unprecedented growth in membership after 2005 . This is an essential text for those interested in trade union history and the British labour movement, and will be of interest to anyone seeking inspiration from the life of this committed activist and campaigner – a woman whose first thought and prime concern was always the happiness, security and betterment of her members and all those whom she served.

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In For the People: Left Populism in Spain and the US Jorge Tamames offers a stimulating comparative study of Spain’s Podemos and the Bernie Sanders movement in the US. Left populism emerges as a potential powerful antidote to rising inequality in both Europe and America. Recent years have witnessed dramatic challenges to established politics across Europe and America. Opposition to business-as-usual has not been limited to the radical right: left populist movements with transformative agendas offer a very different – if equally radical – response to the status quo. Focusing on left populist movements in the contrasting political landscapes of Spain and the US, For the People brings together insights from Karl Polanyi, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe to offer a bold new explanatory framework for today’s left populism. The book will be a key text for activists, students of politics, and anyone interested in the current political landscape of Europe and America. It grounds its insights in a careful excavation of recent political history in the two countries, tracing the emergence and advance of left parties and movements from the early days of neoliberalism in the 1970s, through the political landslides that followed the 2008 financial crisis and the post2011 protest cycle, up to the present day. In the age of Trump and Brexit, For the People offers an indispensable mix of theoretical, historical and practical insights for all those interested in and inspired by the radical potentials of left populism.

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From the first anniversary of the revolution in 1918, 7 November was the day of celebrations that marked the founding of the Soviet regime. Through marches, speeches, military parades, carnivals, and the inaugurations of public monuments and plaques, it was on this key date that the peoples and territories of the USSR were brought together in commemoration of the October socialist revolution. Domestically, the object was to foster unity, provide legitimacy, and facilitate popular mobilisations. Commemorative events were also held outside the USSR, and these practices upheld the regime’s international prestige, especially when it presented itself as a model for world revolution. This volume brings together a range of international authors exploring those commemorations from the perspective of the 2017 centenary. Contributors address the international echoes of the celebrations by sketching out a map of the diverse territories commemorating October, including the state spaces of the USSR and other socialist regimes; the associational spaces of the communist Western micro-societies; and the symbolic spaces of newspapers, colours, songs and the communists’ revolutionary calendar. The collection is therefore valuable for readers interested in Soviet political rituals and their representations and new appropriations through different spaces, from the interwar period to the Cold War. It, as part of the Studies in Twentieth Century Communism series, offers a unique and vital perspective on the history of the twentieth century.

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The British Women's Institute is more often associated with jam and Jerusalem than radical activity, but in this book Maggie Andrews explores the WI's relationship with feminism from the formation of the organisation in 1915 up to the eve of British feminism's renaissance in the late 1960s. The book aims to challenge, not only common sense perceptions about the Women's Institute but also those about feminism, interrogating preoccupations with domestic spaces and skills. This makes it is valuable reading for those interested in both historical and contemporary feminism, as well as, more broadly, the history of the twentieth century. Attention is given to the female cultural space and the value system provided by the WI, and the campaigns that articulated the needs of rural women and attempted to meet them. In this 100th anniversary year of the founding of the WI, this celebrated text is re-published in a new and completely revised edition. Maggie Andrews's new afterword considers the resurgence of interest in the WI amongst young women in the twenty-first century, and the relationship between this and the contemporary cultural enthusiasm for the domestic. There is also a new chapter on the formation of the WI in the First World War and substantial additions to existing chapters, including discussions of the WI involvement with radio in the inter-war years, and with evacuation in the Second World War.

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My Life's Battles is one of the first true working-class autobiographies, the story of Will Thorne, who helped to make a better world for ordinary people. Thorne's life story is a journey from tenements and factories to the corridors of power and the barricades of the Russian Revolution. Thorne began his working life as a six-year-old child labourer. His politics were shaped by his adventures with the tramping navvies, and forged among the roaring furnaces of the Beckton Gasworks in East London. As a semi-skilled industrial labourer, he founded the Gasworkers' Union, campaigned on behalf of the unemployed and fighting for the Eight Hour Day. Eleanor Marx helped him learn to read and write. He eventually became the General Secretary of the General and Municipal Workers union, and was an East London MP for forty years. Along the way, Thorne experienced the street fights and bitter strikes that represented the struggles of British Socialism and that gave rise to the Labour Movement. He oversaw the development of these battles into the creation of the Welfare State. Thorne's is a story of success, and one for celebration, but it is most importantly about one individual's achievements for the many, rather than for his own worldly gain. Sometimes fact is more fantastical - and liberating - than fiction.

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Ada Salter's pioneering role in the socialist politics of the early twentieth century has, in past accounts of the period, been marginalised in favour of the work of her husband Dr Alfred Salter. Yet years before the 'Bermondsey Revolution' Ada had worked out nearly all of its ideas from her experience in the women's movement and as President of the Women's Labour League. Afterwards, it was Ada on the LCC who spread ground-breaking ideas on urban development all over London and, as Chair of the National Gardens Guild, all over Britain. By foregrounding Ada - more rooted in the movement than her husband - Graham Taylor is better able to explore and interpret 'ethical socialism' and the revolutionary work of this remarkable woman, both previously overlooked. He shows how Ada's experiences as a 'Sister of the People' in the London slums led her to Keir Hardie's ILP, and to the belief that achieving democracy and social justice in Britain required a grassroots alliance between the labour and women's movements. Although other women in the ILP had similar ideas, only Ada actually took political power, implemented her derided 'utopian' ideas, and won elections by huge majorities. Based on original research, including unpublished memoirs, the author argues that successful social revolutions percolate upwards from grassroots activity in local communities to the highest reaches of government. In that way Ada's ethical socialism brought her into alliance with Ramsay Macdonald, Herbert Morrison and Bertrand Russell, and into conflict with Churchill, Asquith and Lenin. Finally, the author shows how the ideas of ethical socialism have now returned to contemporary politics. Finally, the author shows how the ideas of ethical socialism have now returned to contemporary politics, making Ada Salter a remarkable figure of topical historical interest.

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Introduction by Paul Preston with a foreword by Rodney Bickerstaffe This scrapbook, kept by a 17-year-old children's nurse in South Yorkshire, offers an insight into the political and emotional impact that the Spanish Civil War had on a generation who lived through the agonising defeat of the Spanish Republic. Elizabeth Pearl Bickerstaffe's cuttings reveal the extent of human suffering in the war in Spain - and likewise in China - in which civilians were the main casualties. They also tell of the vain efforts in Britain and by the International Brigade volunteers in Spain itself to prevent this latest triumph for the fascist powers in Europe. And we sense the fierce commitment to the cause of the Spanish Republic felt by the newspaper correspondents and photographers who witnessed this unfolding tragedy. The role of the foreign correspondents in Spain is discussed in an introduction by Paul Preston, the foremost historian of the Spanish Civil War. In his foreword, Rodney Bickerstaffe underlines the important part played both by the events in Spain and by his mother's scrapbook in shaping his political values. This point is amplified in Jim Jump's preface explaining more about the creation, context and consequences of Pearl Bickerstaffe's compelling scrapbook of one of the major episodes in twentieth-century history.

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This edition of letters by Antonio Gramsci vividly evokes the 'great and terrible world' in which he lived, a description he used a number of times in his correspondence. The letters show Gramsci beginning to form the theoretical concepts that come to fuller fruition in the Prison Notebooks, but they also give an essential and rounded picture of Gramsci's development, politically, intellectually and emotionally - the latter especially through letters to his family and wife. Broadly speaking, the letters are of three types: early letters to Gramsci's family; overtly political letters from Turin, Moscow, Vienna, and Rome; and letters to the Schucht sisters, including Jul'ka, whom he married while in Moscow. The political letters constitute a fascinating insight into the period, both with regard to the Communist International and, more often, to Italian politics. The volume also includes the famous letter of 1926 in which Gramsci, writing in the name of the Italian Party's Political Bureau, criticises the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party for their handling of internal opposition. The book follows a broadly chronological structure, and includes a general introduction, a guide to the main personalities involved, and additional contextual information for each chapter. It also includes some little-known photographic material.

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The Green London Way is an alternative approach to the exploration of London. The book describes a hundred mile walk circling the capital, but, uniquely, also offers insightful histories of London's people and a commentary on its abundant local wildlife. The walk, divided into manageable sections, each with maps by Graham Scrivener (the 'urban Wainwright'), traverses London's tow paths, woodlands and commons, examining links between local human history and the landscape on which it is founded. This updated version of the text also incorporates discussion of the rapid developments in London in the past twenty years, analysing the features which have recently changed the face of the city. Bob Gilbert provides a wealth of information about the plant and animal life of London, including some surprising instances of rare species. In terms of wildlife, landscape and history, The Green London Way is full of discoveries for any walker or reader, and provides a new awareness of Greater London.

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The policies pursued in Brussels are unremittingly conservative, the product of the technocratic right's dominance of EU institutions and most national capitals. These essays propose a clean break with the right's hegemony and suggest a radical agenda for change and reform. Instead of supporting the disruptive distraction of a referendum, the UK left should work with other European progressives to create a programme for economic, social and ecological renewal for Europe in the world. In this volume, contributors - all leading MEPs and senior EU officials - discuss austerity's throttling of Europe's growth prospects; how to respond to the return of poverty and rampant inequalities; and how to challenge unaccountable corporate power. They also engage critically with Europe's environmental policies, which have been long on promise and short on delivery; its short-sighted immigration management; and its sacrifice of fair trade in the name of an ideological commitment to unbridled globalisation.

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Colin Ward was one of the most significant thinkers and activists of the British anarchist movement in the twentieth century. He was a prolific journalist who had a profound impact on political thought, most notably through his works on urban life, housing, squatters, children and criminology. Contributors focus on Ward's life and works, including analyses of: his contribution to the resurgence of anarchist journalism through War Commentary and Freedom; his impact on other activists; the relationship between his form of anarchism and the evolving New Left; how Ward's 'practical anarchism' was influenced by the works of Peter Kropotkin; Ward's Englishness; the contributions he made to British social policy in the post-war period; and his endorsement of the seemingly incompatible movements of social anarchism and lifestyle anarchism.

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Suburbs and the relationships that sustain them have been subject to tremendous changes in the last fifty years, with changing work patterns, changing family lives, changing patterns of home ownership and a massive shift in the structural relationships between inner cities and their surrounding urban environment. But this transformation has been largely overlooked, and the suburbs have lived on in the collective imagination as places that are homogenous and/or boring. But suburbs have always come in many shapes and sizes, and this book documents widely varying forms of suburban life to construct a compelling narrative of suburban diversity and variety. Huq demonstrates conclusively that those who still fondly imagine the suburbs as the preserve of maiden aunts on bicycles, the domain of archetypal Englishness - or less fondly as places of stifling conformism and stagnation - are wide of the mark. In this sense her re-imagining of the suburbs is also a re-imagining of Englishness.

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Regeneration focuses on the question of intergenerational justice. Defining the world's young people as those born after 1979 - a hugely symbolic moment in the history of globalisation - it reflects on the massive growth in generational protest across the globe thirty years later. At its heart is an analysis of politics though the prism of generation. The incapacity of the major political parties in Britain to think beyond their short-term electoral interests is, by definition, particularly harmful for those at the beginning of their lives. It has led to a failure to act on climate change, savage cutbacks in education and training, an acute shortage of housing, big cuts in youth services, and, for many, the prospect of an old age without pensions. Things have deteriorated to the point where many young people are finding it impossible to find the wherewithal to settle down and have families - the classic marks of adulthood. But, as Shiv Malik argues in his preface, a diagnosis of the problem does not absolve the young from taking responsibility for developing solutions. We need more than 'a whinge of epic proportions'. And, as he also points out, the young are well placed to develop alternatives: 'we are the most well-educated, innovative, dynamic and open generation in human history'. This means that this book also has plenty of ideas for changing the future.

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John Saville (1916-2009) was one of the leading socialist academics of his generation, and one of the most influential figures in British labour history. This new collection of essays offers a variety of perspectives on his lifetime's work. A first section - commitments - assesses Saville's activities, at different times during his life, as a communist, as a founder of the New Left, and as editor (with Ralph Miliband) of the long-running Socialist Register. The middle section - themes - looks at key themes which mattered for Saville, from revolutionary anti-imperialism in India to the politics of Cold War and debates in labour history. In part three - interventions - contributors discuss Saville's contributions to contemporary historical understanding of Chartism, British labourism and the Cold War. The aim is to offer critical analysis and reflection in the tradition which Saville himself did so much to establish.

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This book is an attempt 'to think in a Gramscian way' about the curious political phenomenon of New Labour. It is written partly in retort to those people at the heart of the New Labour project who have cited Gramsci as a source of inspiration for their ideas. Pearmain argues that New Labour makes a far better object than agent of Gramscian analysis.

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In this new collection, the idea of Republican democracy is put forward as a way of moving progressive politics beyond its present impasse. The core aim of Republicanism is understood as the sustenance of a strong and participative civil society in tandem with an active and democratic state, seeking the dispersal of property and an increase in the accountability of decision-makers - in short, a state that neither swallows up society, nor yields to the embrace of market. The challenge for Republicans is to put both the state and the market in their place so as to build what we may call a citizen society. This could be seen as a mere variation on the theme of social democracy, but it is one that is robust in its aim of advancing the revolutionary values of liberty, equality and fraternity, and in its emphasis on widening ownership and increasing participation.

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The Transport and General Workers Union was the biggest trade union in Britain for much of the 20th century, with its membership in the late 1970s reaching more than two million. It organised workers across the whole economy - from the docks to the car factories, from light engineering to aviation - and its activities touched the lives of many.

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The essays in this collection are a tribute to Stuart Hall, and to the outstanding contribution he has made to contemporary cultural, social and political thought. The central figure in the development of Cultural Studies, Hall's writing has influenced a whole generation of intellectuals. Some contributors reflect and comment on Hall's contribution; others continue to develop some of his key themes. But most share a focus on reconnecting his work with Jamaica - his birthplace - and the wider Caribbean.

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Nobody now thinks the Webbs' Soviet Communism a 'great book' - as Harold Laski hailed it after its publication in 1935. Closer to the mark seems A.J.P. Taylor's verdict - 'the most preposterous book ever written about Soviet Russia'. Some ascribe its apologia for Stalinism to the couple's old age and deteriorating judgement. Others, more influentially, note the affinities it reveals between the Webbs' Fabian philosophy and the bureaucratic dystopia of Stalinism. In this meticulous reconstruction of the Webbs' thinking, Kevin Morgan offers a challenging reassessment of accepted stereotypes. Through their diaries, papers and published writings, he assesses the couple's complex political evolution over some four decades, as Victorian certainties gave way to an age of social and political upheaval. He also shows how much more significant were their individual responses than the cliche of 'two typewriters beating as one' would suggest. While Sidney upheld the statist and technocratic perspectives synonymous with 'Webbism', Beatrice also contributed concerns with associationism and the search for a higher social morality. Their love affair with Soviet communism, which seemed to represent both synthesis and transcendence of these different strands of their thought, was far less idiosyncratic than is sometimes thought. Here it is discussed in a broader context, with separate chapters devoted to the 'roads to Russia' of technocrats and co-operators, debates with guild socialists, and an exploration of the neglected contradictions of the Webbs' own social philosophy. Through this wider cast of characters, from Margaret Llewellyn Davies to G.D.H. Cole, the paradox which emerges is that it was precisely those who had been most suspicious of state socialism who proved most susceptible to its Soviet apotheosis.

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This work examines the way in which much "third world" aid, far from contributing to the prosperity of recipient countries, helps to shore up global relations of domination and subordination. In particular, Goudge focuses on the role played by "race" in discourses and practices of development, and on the impact of unacknowledged - and often unconscious - assumptions of white, Western superiority. For example, the unequal distribution of resources that results from global power imbalances is often attributed to the inferior capabilities of the black poor. Goudge worked for some years as a volunteer in a "third world" country - in her case, Nicaragua - and this book is the result of her subsequent reflections and research. The core of her evidence comes from in-depth interviews with development and aid workers, as well as her own experiences and diaries. She also explores other related texts to illustrate that development and aid practitioners and agencies do not operate in a vacuum, but are a part of a pervasive discourse of superiority and inferiority. She submits her material to stringent analysis and finds much evidence of unconscious attitudes of superiority - with uncomfortable echoes of the assumptions of the colonial epoch. Goudge questions her own beliefs and actions as much as those of others. Indeed it is her contention that in scrutinising the motivations of those of us whose intentions are good, we can discover a great deal about the global operations of the power of whiteness.

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