MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
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The role of peasants in 20th century history
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a history that excavates the enormous role played by agricultural workers in recent times
Kathe Kollwitz, Charge, sheet 5 of the cycle Peasants War, 1902-1903
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ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
The Last Peasant War — Violence and revolution in Twentieth-Century Eastern Europe
by Jakub S Benes
Princeton University Press, £35
WHEN I first read the title of this book, I did a double take. I knew of peasant wars in the Middle Ages and of leaders like Wat Tyler and Thomas Muntzer, but peasant wars in the 20th century? Surely the publisher had the date wrong?
Benes soon disabused me of my ignorance. In his introduction he points out that both conservative and Marxist historians have largely ignored the more recent revolutionary roles played by the peasantry.
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