STEVE ANDREW enjoys an account of the many communities that flourished independently of and in resistance to the empires of old
Latest editorial
Studious rebel
Intriguing account of Lenin's time in London
TOM STONE urges you to catch the last dates of a New York singer/songwriter, never afraid to challenge her audiences musically or politically
JAN WOOLF examines work that aims to give viewers a material experience of the environments in the polar north and Britain equally affected by the climate crisis
The bard recalls advice received 50 years ago from his TRB muse, and sorts out appropriate legislation for football club ownership
MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review Facing War, Kontinental ’25, Bugonia, and Relay
MAYER WAKEFIELD is frustrated by a production of Ibsen’s classic study of an anti-heroine that fails to elucidate her motivations
PETER MASON tunes his ear into the domestic affairs of a Carribbean couple with a troublesome son
The Spark that Lit the Revolution: Lenin in London and the Politics that Changed the World
By Robert Henderson
IB Tauris, £25
Lenin warned against turning leaders into icons after their deaths. Unlike most of the biographies of a man whose ideas increasingly resound amid the world’s accumulating crises, Robert Henderson’s archival snapshots put human flesh on the intellectual and political bones of a figure who remains either revered or hated to this day.
Seeking a base to edit and publish Iskra (the spark), the official paper of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), safe from the Okhrana, the tsarist secret police, Lenin made a number of fleeting visits to London in the first decade of the 20th century.
Similar stories
JOHN GREEN surveys the remarkable career of screenwriter Malcolm Hulke and the essential part played by his membership of the Communist Party
The Morning Star sorts the good eggs from the rotten scoundrels of the year
TOMASZ PIERSCIONEK relishes a collection of cartoons that focus on Palestine from the period 1917 to 1948
Two new releases from Burkina Faso and Niger, one from French-based Afro Latin The Bongo Hop, and rare Mexican bootlegs