Resonance and Revolt
by Rosanne Rabinowitz
(Eibon Vale Press, £12.50)

RESONANCE and Revolt is a vibrant and exciting anthology of short stories that's hard to classify genre-wise. Best described as a dizzy odyssey through famous and not so famous periods of revolt and insurrection, it draws upon an encyclopaedic array of revolutionaries, some fictional, some non-fictional and some probably somewhere in between.

Detailed research on the part of its author Rosanne Rabinowitz ensures that many of the stories are imbued with a deep sense of history. The text is littered with arresting images culled from the gritty countercultures of the millenarian movements of the Middle Ages right through to the anarcho-punks and squatters of contemporary Brixton.

Rabinowitz eschews clumsy agitprop-style didactics and doesn’t offer easy answers. Given to open-ended responses, her interest is largely driven by wonder at people's continued ability to love, think and rebel against capital, often in the most difficult and unlikely circumstances, and her key characters are far too human to become one-dimensional caricatures.