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turkey
Books / 25 June 2026
25 June 2026

BRENT CUTLER welcomes a thoughtful analysis of the Erdogan regime, viewed through the evolving history of a neighbourhood in Istanbul

stones
Books / 25 June 2026
25 June 2026

STEVEN ANDREW is fascinated by an account of the many baseless folk tales that evolved to explain the existence of pre-historic stone circles

nazi art
Books / 25 June 2026
25 June 2026

GORDON PARSONS regrets the price, but is dazzled by an outstandingly ambitious study of the way art restoration in particular, and culture in general was weaponised by the Nazis

Cleaver
Book Review / 25 June 2026
25 June 2026

DAVID HARVIE recommends a selection of Harry Cleaver’s writing that documents working-class activism and offers a method, and a way of understanding and investigating the world

time's echo
Book Review / 23 June 2026
23 June 2026

DAVID YEARSLEY is fascinated by the account of four composers who transformed their experiences of the second world war and the Holocaust into deeply moving works of art

boix
Literature / 22 June 2026
22 June 2026

From post-human revolution in Puerto Rico to trans poetics and queer mythmaking, these three books that imagine new ways of being together

you must live
Book Review / 19 June 2026
19 June 2026

JAMIE BRITTON recommends that we all buy at least two copies of a remarkable book of poems

revolutions
Book Review / 17 June 2026
17 June 2026

HENRY BELL follows the lineage of revolutions, from the English to the Chinese, and asks where revolutionary politics exists today

magdalen
Books / 11 June 2026
11 June 2026

SUE TURNER is compelled by a history that shows how far a country can turn in on itself to collude with abuses of power

manson
Books / 11 June 2026
11 June 2026

RON JACOBS is persuaded by the parallel drawn between Charles Manson and Donald Trump

puerto rico
Books / 11 June 2026
11 June 2026

ANDREW MURRAY welcomes a fascinating account of the struggle in Puerto Rico for democracy and independence

chasing
Books / 28 May 2026
28 May 2026

ALEX HALL welcomes the memoir of a prominent British academic of Ugandan/Zimbabwean heritage

undergrounding
Books / 28 May 2026
28 May 2026

JAMIE BRITTON recommends this fine analysis of the architectural, ecological and infrastructural destruction of the Gaza Strip

sell genocide
Books / 22 May 2026
22 May 2026

GAVIN O’TOOLE recommends a methodical unmasking of the US media’s complicity in the Israeli genocide, that should be a template for what’s needed to bring Britain’s corporate media to book

aliens
Books / 22 May 2026
22 May 2026

ALEX HALL is amused at the way the UFOs appear exactly where commercial interests, conspiracies, militarism and right-wing media overlap

cicero
Books / 22 May 2026
22 May 2026

MARTIN HALL examines the way the Roman orator took on different schools of philosophy

Protesters at St Paul's Cathedral, London, after a rally to challenge the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby to support rewilding across the Church of England's vast estate, October 6, 2024
Books / 8 May 2026
8 May 2026

BRENT CUTLER welcomes a timely reminder of the long history of protests and the outdoor spaces in which they takes place

mother capital
Books / 30 April 2026
30 April 2026

ALEX HALL is fascinated by a lucid and historically convincing account of how rent has dominated capitalist economies from feudalism to modernity

crown silence
Books / 30 April 2026
30 April 2026

ELLIS RAE recommends a stunning history of the active role played by the British monarchy in establishing and profiting from slavery

THE ARCH OPPORTUNIST: Reform UK leader Nigel Farage in Golders Green on Thursday April 30, 2026
Features / 1 May 2026
1 May 2026

Gavin O’Toole talks to anti-racism researcher HARRY SHUKMAN about the rise of the far right

cover
Books / 13 April 2026
13 April 2026

CHRISTOPHE DOMEC relishes a dizzyingly precise fiction that relays the problem of reporting the truth

atwood
Book Review / 13 March 2026
13 March 2026

JONATHAN TAYLOR ponders the difference between autobiography and memoir - between life and story - in Margaret Atwood’s account of herself

brown
Books / 11 March 2026
11 March 2026

PAUL DONOVAN enjoys a somewhat rose-tinted survey of Brown’s achievements and legacy, as well as his moments of political cowardice

radicals
Books / 11 March 2026
11 March 2026

JOHN GREEN is disappointed by a history of the British working class that retreads familiar paths and offers no new insights

uganda
Books / 11 March 2026
11 March 2026

GUILLERMO THOMAS recommends an important, if dispiriting book about the neo-colonial culture of Uganda under Yoweri Museveni

WB childhood
Books / 11 March 2026
11 March 2026

KEN COCKBURN is intrigued by the publication of the Marxist theorist’s reminiscence of a bourgeois childhood

scifi
Science fiction / 10 March 2026
10 March 2026

Tyrannosaurs in Thailand, colonialism as videogame, and a feminist gem from 1936

benjamin
Books / 6 March 2026
6 March 2026

GORDON PARSONS is intrigued by a biography of the Marxist intellectual and author, made from the point of view of his son

baroud
Books / 4 March 2026
4 March 2026

RON JACOBS recommends an outstanding family memoir of life in Gaza

Mann
Books / 3 March 2026
3 March 2026

FIONA O’CONNOR relishes a cinematic exploration of the writing, and the historical context of Thomas Mann’s WWI masterpiece, The Magic Mountain

CVCs
Books / 26 February 2026
26 February 2026

STEVE ANDREW recommends a Marxist analysis of the long chains of production that global corporations exploit

detecting
Books / 20 February 2026
20 February 2026

JONATHAN TAYLOR is intrigued how good storytelling can make a hobby as obsessional as metal detecting seem fascinating

franco
Books / 20 February 2026
20 February 2026

RON JACOBS sees similarities between the personality of the the Spanish Dictator Francisco Franco, and Donald Trump

stonehenge
Books / 17 February 2026
17 February 2026

BRENT CUTLER unpicks the complex social relations imagined in a novel about the builders of Stonehenge

mcinally
Books / 6 February 2026
6 February 2026

HELEN MERCER recommends a timely history of the Civil Service worker organisation that proposes a principled and strategic approach for the future

heaney
Books / 6 February 2026
6 February 2026

ALAN McGUIRE welcomes the complete poems of Seamus Heaney for the unmistakeable memory of colonialism that they carry

Parr
Books / 5 February 2026
5 February 2026

JOHN GREEN explores the controversial and popular images of the late Martin Parr, made in the heyday of Thatcherism

mc crime feb
Crime fiction / 3 February 2026
3 February 2026

Japanese innovation, Costa Rican skullduggery, Glasgow Central suicide, and good deeds punished in London

PS
Books / 29 January 2026
29 January 2026

JULIA TOPPIN recommends Patti Smith’s eloquent memoir that wrestles with the beauty and sorrow of a lifetime

wilde
Books / 29 January 2026
29 January 2026

MARJORIE MAYO welcomes an account of family life after Oscar Wilde, a cathartic exercise, written by his grandson

water
Books / 20 January 2026
20 January 2026

RICHARD MURGATROYD appreciates a study that urges us to think about water differently, as a living entity with its own logic and intelligence

green philo
Books / 16 January 2026
16 January 2026

BRENT CUTLER welcomes a valuable contribution to discussions around the need to de-carbonise energy production

uzbek
Books / 18 January 2026
18 January 2026

STEVE ANDREW is intrigued by a timely and well-researched book that demonstrates the conflicted history of the central Asian country

Jack London
Opinion / 5 January 2026
5 January 2026

JENNY FARRELL reminds us that the US novelist, famed for pulp fiction and nature stories, was, by virtue of life experience, a committed revolutionary socialist

Steven's Croft Biomass Plant plant near Lockerbie, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland Pic: Chris Newman/CC
Books / 4 January 2026
4 January 2026

BRENT CUTLER recommends a sober examination of the real risks and true merits of nuclear energy, and an exposure of the capitalist system as an obstacle to human betterment

transcendence
Book Review / 11 December 2025
11 December 2025

JONATHAN TAYLOR is fascinated by the philosophical problems that permeate the art of life-writing

craftland
Book Review / 11 December 2025
11 December 2025

ALAN MCGUIRE relishes a celebration of handmade craftsmanship in the UK, and hears a quiet warning

o. caseey
Books / 9 December 2025
9 December 2025

JENNY FARRELL relishes an intimate memoir about growing up in the household of the great Irish communist and playwright Sean O’Casey

west
Books / 20 November 2025
20 November 2025

BRENT CUTLER is intrigued by the imperialist, supremacist and contradictory history of a word that is used all too easily

windrush
Books / 19 November 2025
19 November 2025

PETER MASON is beguiled by a fascinating account of the importance of cricket to immigrants from the Caribbean to the UK

complicit
Books / 19 November 2025
19 November 2025

GAVIN O’TOOLE welcomes, and recommends a a candid, evidence-based record of Britain’s role in the slaughter visited by Israel upon the Palestinians

peek
Books / 18 November 2025
18 November 2025

PETER MASON is gripped by a novel that confronts corporate callousness with those prepared to act to bring about change

fair
Books / 18 November 2025
18 November 2025

KEN COCKBURN relishes the memoir of a translator, but wonders whether the autobiography underlying the impulse would make a better book

waves
Book Review / 13 November 2025
13 November 2025

MARTIN HALL welcomes a study of Britain’s relationship with the EU that sheds light on the way euroscepticism moved from the margins to the centre

taliban
Books / 13 November 2025
13 November 2025

GAVIN O’TOOLE savours a veteran correspondent’s account of the monumental US failure in Afghanistan

apartheid to democracy
Books / 13 November 2025
13 November 2025

ALEX HALL recommends a considered and clear approach to dismantling apartheid and occupation, were Israel to come to its senses

manipulation
Books / 23 October 2025
23 October 2025

ALEX HALL is disappointed by a superficial investigation of how consumer choice can be influenced, that ignores the fact that most never have such a choice

antrobus
Books / 23 October 2025
23 October 2025

PAUL DONOVAN welcomes an inspiring account of living with deafness that has important lessons for the treatment of deaf people in today’s UK

ravensbruck
Books / 23 October 2025
23 October 2025

MARJORIE MAYO recommends a compelling account of how women survived a Nazi concentration camp and lend their experience to today’s fight against the far right

Boix
Books / 21 October 2025
21 October 2025

Essays on contemporary Latin American feminism, a poetry debut by a queer Texan of Mexican heritage, and a lush volume of tango and milonga drawings

Partisans
Books / 17 October 2025
17 October 2025

RON JACOBS recommends an accessible graphic history of the Partisans and their many instances of heroic and successful resistance to fascism

fraud
Books / 15 October 2025
15 October 2025

ALEX HALL recommends an exhaustive investigation of the means by which the Starmer faction assassinated the left

byrne
Books / 7 October 2025
7 October 2025

This thriller is a politically charged and morally complex dive into climate activism and police repression, judges JENNY FARRELL

crime
Crime fiction / 7 October 2025
7 October 2025

Cat show killer, avenging the pawns, women hunt the Ripper, and running dry in the outback

 

ghosts
Books / 2 October 2025
2 October 2025

JOHN GREEN is enchanted by the story of women’s farm work, both now and the the 1940s, that brims with political and social insight

gaza
Books / 2 October 2025
2 October 2025

RON JACOBS is moved to tears by an eloquent journal of heartfelt intensity and human portraiture

UCU
Books / 2 October 2025
2 October 2025

ROBERT OVETZ recommends a case study, from the University of Leicester, in their struggle against precarization, AI, privatisation, outsourcing, and work intensification in higher education

ai con
Books / 2 October 2025
2 October 2025

IAN SINCLAIR welcomes a lucid critique of a technology that reproduces and enables oppression, power, and environmental devastation

BY ANY MEANS POSSIBLE: Yanaocha mine in Cajamarca, Peru is the largest gold mine in South America operated by Newmont Corporation. It is considered the most profitable in the world [Pic: Elbuenminero/CC]
Books / 9 September 2025
9 September 2025

JOE GILL appreciates a lucid demonstration of how capital today is an outgrowth of the colonial economy

nature books
Books / 9 September 2025
9 September 2025

PAUL DONOVAN recommends three new books that explore the human relationship with nature

culpable
Book Review / 7 September 2025
7 September 2025

MARJORIE MAYO is moved by the clarity with which the FBU call out the true causes of this preventable tragedy

sturgeon
Books / 29 August 2025
29 August 2025

KENNY MACASKILL delivers his assessment of Nicloa Sturgeon’s account of her political career

starmer symptom
Books / 28 August 2025
28 August 2025

ANDREW MURRAY recommends a volume of essays that nail the visionless, racist and neoliberal character of policy under Starmer’s Labour Party

amazon
Books / 28 August 2025
28 August 2025

GAVIN O’TOOLE examines the fatal relationship between environmental crimes and politics in Brazil and the inspiration provided by Indigenous people

anglican crimes
Book Review / 15 August 2025
15 August 2025

GUILLERMO THOMAS is persuaded by a scathing critique of the Church of England and its embeddedness in imperialism

crime
Crime Fiction / 12 August 2025
12 August 2025

Timeloop murder, trad family MomBomb, Sicilian crime pages and Craven praise

jacobs
Books / 8 August 2025
8 August 2025

RON JACOBS rides shotgun with a member of Black Bloc on the wave of anti-capitalist protests of the 1990s and early 2000s

bacon
Books / 8 August 2025
8 August 2025

MATTHEW SHARPE recommends the essays of a Renaissance politician that instruct and unnerve after 400 years

Illustration by Malc McGookin
Books / 5 August 2025
5 August 2025

PAUL BUHLE agrees that a grassroots movements for change in needed in the US, independent of electoral politics

gaia
Books / 1 August 2025
1 August 2025

JOHN HAWKINS wrestles with the anti-humanist fantasies of techno-feudalist thinking

US
Books / 1 August 2025
1 August 2025

With reservations, RON JACOBS recommends a deep dive into the nature, history, and mindset of US intelligence

gaza
Books / 31 July 2025
31 July 2025

ANDY HEDGECOCK recommends that these beautifully written diaries from Gaza be essential reading for thick-skinned MPs

muntzer
Books / 25 July 2025
25 July 2025

JAMES CROSSLEY applauds a lucid biography of the German radical preacher who reemerged as a hero in the GDR

ginseng
Books / 25 July 2025
25 July 2025

Star cartoonist JAMIE BRITTON is in awe of a graphic novel of epic proportions that explores class, religion and globalisation via the strange cultivation of Ginseng in the US Midwest

satie
Books / 18 July 2025
18 July 2025

ANDY HEDGECOCK relishes an exuberant blend of emotion and analysis that captures the politics and contrarian nature of the French composer

first
Book Review / 11 July 2025
11 July 2025

SALEEM BADAT and VASU REDDY introduce a new book about an outstanding interpreter of the world, and an activist scholar committed to changing society

next crisis
Book Review / 11 July 2025
11 July 2025

PAUL DONOVAN is fascinated by a deep dive into contemporary social crises, that examines how they are manipulated by elites

church
Books / 4 July 2025
4 July 2025

HENRY BELL notes the curious confluence of belief, rebuilding and cheap materials that gave rise to an extraordinary number of modernist churches in post-war Scotland

whippy
Books / 4 July 2025
4 July 2025

MARTIN HALL passes time in the sanguine company of a traditional conservative, recalling their disastrous governments

genocide
Books / 4 July 2025
4 July 2025

JOHN HAWKINS welcomes the passion, grief, precision and elegance of an eloquent witness of genocide

swindon
Books / 13 June 2025
13 June 2025

ALEX HALL is thrilled by a grassroots history of of Swindon’s stunning industrial and creative past

abundance
Books / 12 June 2025
12 June 2025

JOHN GREEN isn’t helped by the utopian fantasy of a New York Times bestseller that ignores class struggle and blames the so-called ’progressives’

subversive voice
Books / 12 June 2025
12 June 2025

IAN SINCLAIR wades through a useful but academic study of the protest song

londres
Books / 12 June 2025
12 June 2025

GORDON PARSONS recommends a gripping account of flawed justice in the case of Pinochet and the Nazi fugitive Walther Rauff

crime
Book Reviews / 10 June 2025
10 June 2025

A corrupted chemist, a Hampstead homosexual and finely observed class-conflict at The Bohemia

BAGRATION
Books / 6 June 2025
6 June 2025

TOMASZ PIERSCIONEK relishes a detailed history of the battles, manoeuvres and tactics that defeated fascism

palestine monuments
Books / 29 May 2025
29 May 2025

MARJORIE MAYO recommends a disturbing book that seeks to recover traces of the past that have been erased by Israeli colonialism

scorched
Books / 29 May 2025
29 May 2025

RON JACOBS salutes a magnificent narrative that demonstrates how the war replaced European colonialism with US imperialism and Soviet power

Pic: Kharsohtun/CC
Books / 25 May 2025
25 May 2025

ANDY HEDGECOCK admires a critique of the penetration of our lives by digital media, but is disappointed that the underlying cause is avoided

IT'S JUST NOT CRICKET: Protesters demonstrate outside Lord's Cricket Ground in London, on February 25 2025, against England playing Afghanistan in a Champions Trophy match, as female participation in sport has effectively been outlawed in Afghanistan since the Tailban returned to power in 2021
Books / 25 May 2025
25 May 2025

PETER MASON is surprised by the bleak outlook foreseen for cricket’s future by the cricketers’ bible

beautiful
Book Review / 9 May 2025
9 May 2025

GUILLERMO THOMAS recommends a useful book aimed at informing activists with local examples of solidarity in action around the world

hot
Book Review / 9 May 2025
9 May 2025

ELIZABETH SHORT recommends a bracing study of energy intensive AI and the race of such technology towards war profits

barbarism
Book Review / 9 May 2025
9 May 2025

RON JACOBS welcomes the translation into English of an angry cry from the place they call the periphery

future
Book Review / 9 May 2025
9 May 2025

HENRY BELL is provoked by a book that looks toward, but does not fully explore the question of who gets to imagine the shapes of cities to come

tucker
Books / 2 May 2025
2 May 2025

CHRIS MOSS relishes the painting and the life story of a self-taught working-class artist from Warrington

miners
Books / 2 May 2025
2 May 2025

STEVEN ANDREW is moved beyond words by a historical account of mining in Britain made from the words of the miners themselves

shosty
Books / 2 May 2025
2 May 2025

JONATHAN TAYLOR is intrigued by an account of the struggle of Soviet-era musicians to adapt to the strictures of social realism

nazi nightmares
Books / 2 May 2025
2 May 2025

GORDON PARSONS is fascinated by a unique dream journal collected by a Jewish journalist in Nazi Berlin

rainbow
Books / 2 May 2025
2 May 2025

CAILEAN MCBRIDE welcomes a refreshing and timely study of the way officialdom creates structures that exclude LGBT+ rights and humanity

The global average in 2021 was 50,000 kilocalories per head,
Culture / 13 April 2025
13 April 2025
MARTIN GRAHAM recommends a book that makes a critique of neoclassical economics and attempts to envision a sustainable global future
Kathe Kollwitz, Charge, sheet 5 of the cycle Peasants War, 1
Culture / 13 April 2025
13 April 2025
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a history that excavates the enormous role played by agricultural workers in recent times
The Palisades Fire that started in the City of Los Angeles,
Books / 1 April 2025
1 April 2025
IAN SINCLAIR draws attention to the powerful role that literature plays in foreseeing the way humanity will deal with climate crisis
A LAN party at the 2004 DreamHack with hundreds of players
Books / 27 March 2025
27 March 2025
SCOTT ALSWORTH hears the call to burn down and rebuild the video game industry from the bottom up
LABORATORY OF BULLYING: A scene from Ken Loach's Kes
Books / 27 March 2025
27 March 2025
JOHN GREEN recommends an entertaining, if harsh and instructive, study of bullying, discipline and power dynamics in schools and at work
HONORABLE TRADITION OF PROTEST: Junior doctors on a picket l
Books / 27 March 2025
27 March 2025
CHRIS MOSS welcomes a radical history that brings marginalised stories and overlooked people and agencies to the centre
American flags representing the 200,000 dead from COVID-19 p
Book Review / 25 March 2025
25 March 2025
SARAH TROTT explores short fictional slices of life in the American midwest from a middle-aged and mostly female perspective
Literature / 25 March 2025
25 March 2025
JESSICA WIDNER explores how the twin themes of violence and love run through the novels of South Korean Nobel prize-winner Han Kang
A homeless man in New York
Book Review / 22 March 2025
22 March 2025
JOHN HAWKINS is moved by an oral history that examines five black families pushed into homelessness in the US
UNITED WE’LL NEVER BE DEFEATED: A lantern parade in Liverp
Books / 14 March 2025
14 March 2025
MARJORIE MAYO recommends a punchy demonstration of the the way class politics are being fragmented by the right
THE POLITICS OF FOOD PRODUCTION: Landless Workers' Movement
Books / 13 March 2025
13 March 2025
STEVE ANDREW welcomes a political interrogation of the contradiction between ecological awareness and a dietary crisis in today’s food consumption
IMPOSSIBLE CHOICES: A victim of starvation in besieged Lenin
Books / 13 March 2025
13 March 2025
HENRY BELL is moved by the account of scientists under seige in Leningrad who preferred to starve rather than sacrifice their life-saving work
A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS: (L to R) Church of St Mary Magdalene
Books / 13 March 2025
13 March 2025
WILL PODMORE recommends an excellent and useful introduction to a lesser-known giant of the scientific revolution in Britain
BLING: Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, with gold-infuse
Books / 11 March 2025
11 March 2025
SETH SANDRONSKY appreciates a fresh take on a 100-year-old novel that helps to contextualise the current moment of conspicuous wealth, waste and climate chaos
AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Transition town are grassroot community
Books / 6 March 2025
6 March 2025
IAN SINCLAIR welcomes the first word on Transformative Adaptation, a new group that has grown out of Extinction Rebellion
PILED UP DESPAIR: Poverty and unemployment define Rio de Jan
Books / 6 March 2025
6 March 2025
GAVIN O’TOOLE welcomes a masterful study of gang behaviour in the favelas of Sao Paulo
Assertion of Liberty of Conscience by the Independents of th
Books / 6 March 2025
6 March 2025
ANDREW MURRAY is compelled by the moment of revolution in British history when Parliament had political intimacy with society
COMPASSION: Nurses at Oak Ridge Hospital in the 1940s
Book Review / 27 February 2025
27 February 2025
MARJORIE MAYO recommends a remarkable book that restores another of history’s racially biased omissions
THE GOOD FIGHT: Librarian Amanda Jones showing her article o
Books / 21 February 2025
21 February 2025
SUE TURNER is inspired by the example of a librarian’s struggle to confront the book-banning movement
A GREAT TEACHER: Fredric Jameson speaking at the Brazilian c
Books / 18 February 2025
18 February 2025
FIONA O’CONNOR recommends an accessible and entertaining survey of post-war French philosophy and its relation to contemporary capitalism
A freed Palestinian prisoner, center, is greeted by a crowd
Books / 7 February 2025
7 February 2025
RON JACOBS welcomes a Palestinian account of being subject to a brutal occupation supported by the most powerful governments in the world
UNDESERVEDLY OVERLOOKED: Abd el-Krim, Moroccan political and
Book Review / 6 February 2025
6 February 2025
JOE GILL welcomes a helpful, if incomplete, guide to the the native and Islamic struggles against imperial and colonial powers in north Africa
Andree Blouin, centre, Patrice Lumumba’s adviser and speec
Book Review / 5 February 2025
5 February 2025
ROGER MCKENZIE recommends an insider's view of the fight for African independence, as experienced by an important and neglected woman
EVOLUTION OF GOTHIC FROM ISLAMIC: Arches of the former mosqu
Books / 5 February 2025
5 February 2025
WILL PODMORE is enthralled by the convincing case that guilds of Islamic craftsmen were responsible for the European gothic style
A Fuxing high-speed train running near the Beijing Central B
Books / 29 January 2025
29 January 2025
GABRIEL ROCKHILL recommends a perfect primer on contemporary China
KNOWLEDGE FOR ALL: Wycliffe's Bible in the British Library -
Books / 29 January 2025
29 January 2025
JOHN GREEN is dissatisfied with a book that fails to address the promotion of ignorance as a ruling-class strategy to maintain control
REALITY DENIED: Concert in the foyer of the Palast der Repub
Books / 28 January 2025
28 January 2025
JOHN GREEN takes issue with a mainstream novel designed to denigrate the GDR
Literature / 28 January 2025
28 January 2025
LEO BOIX reviews Cuban poet Carlos Pintado; Mexican poet Diana Garza Islas; Mexican American writer and critic Rigoberto Gonzalez; and Brazilian poet Haroldo de Campos
MECHANICAL SHORTCUTS TO FUTURE: The Stepped Reckoner, a mech
Books / 23 January 2025
23 January 2025
WILL PODMORE is enlightened by the achievements of a 17th century scientist whose work anticipates computer programming as well as Marx’s materialism
HERALDING THE UNKNOWN: Declaration of Independence by John T
Books / 23 January 2025
23 January 2025
GORDON PARSONS recommends the biography of the German polymath whose life provides an interesting take on a revolutionary age
THE BOLSONARO EFFECT: Illegal logging at the Gurupi Biologic
Books / 22 January 2025
22 January 2025
GAVIN O’TOOLE welcomes an analysis of the radical right in Latin America as polarising ‘influencers’ who ignore material values 
IDEOLOGICAL CLARITY: East German propaganda against former N
Books / 22 January 2025
22 January 2025
JOHN GREEN advises caution when reading a highly informative account of the way thousands of top Nazis escaped justice and found employment in the West
COGITO, ERGO SUM: The Gates of Hell (with The Thinker at its
Books / 16 January 2025
16 January 2025
ANDY HEDGECOCK is inspired by accessible insights into the theory, function and psychological impact of our digital tools
NO MINCING WORDS: Anti-Nato graffiti on a wall during the bo
Books / 16 January 2025
16 January 2025
STEVEN ANDREW recommends an informed and personable work that contains as many ommisions as it does analyses
NO PRISONERS TAKEN: Virginie Despentes
Literature / 14 January 2025
14 January 2025
RON JACOBS relishes a riotous epistolary novel of revenge against sexual harassment and patriarchy
BEST OF BOTH WORLDS: Cardiologist Juan Manuel Romero at a ho
Books / 10 January 2025
10 January 2025
JONATHAN TAYLOR is moved by the plea to replace mechanistic medicine with a ‘narrative’ approach based on imagination and humanity
TASKED: The newly elected National Domestic Workers Council
Books / 10 January 2025
10 January 2025
JOHN GRAVERSGAARD recommends a study of trade union organising that brings together exemplary lessons from the Uk and Kenya
Crime Fiction / 7 January 2025
7 January 2025
A late Christmas cornucopia, a Canadian wolf, a dodgy motel and Peter Diamond’s last bow
THE DISRUPTORS: Frankfurt School regulars in Heidelberg, Apr
Books / 5 January 2025
5 January 2025
RICHARD CLARKE applauds the assertion that Western Marxism represents a withdrawal from action to change the world into the academy
GROOMED TO RULE: Eton College pupils taking part in the ‘P
Books / 5 January 2025
5 January 2025
WILL PODMORE is intrigued by a study the British ruling class that follows statistical analysis with totally inadequate proposals for change
IMPERIALISM CALLS THE SHOTS: Israeli army armored vehicles b
Books / 5 January 2025
5 January 2025
RON JACOBS recommends a timely pamphlet that provides both explanation and historical context for the fall of Assad
FAUSTIAN PACT: AFL-CIO President George Meany, left, and US
Book Review / 20 December 2024
20 December 2024
HELEN MERCER welcomes an account of how US labour leadership collaborated with the state and betrayed their membership
Illustrations Sue Coe
Books / 18 December 2024
18 December 2024
JOHN GREEN debates the potential of a book that explores fascism in US history and its contemporary impact to reach the audience it deserves
NURTURING A BETTER FUTURE: Unity Books in Glasgow
Features / 12 December 2024
12 December 2024
EBEN WILLIAMS introduces the Unity Bookshop in Glasgow, whose launch open day takes place this weekend
Best of 2024: Letters from Latin America / 6 December 2024
6 December 2024
LEO BOIX selects the best books of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction written by Latinx and Latin American authors published this year
RATIONAL FUTURE: Passenger and freight train on the West Coa
Books / 6 December 2024
6 December 2024
WILL PODMORE welcomes a demonstration of the incomparable virtues of rail travel, and the political obstacles to realising its potential 
PROFIT BEFORE HUMANITY: Female pigs used for breeding - 'bre
Books / 6 December 2024
6 December 2024
RICHARD MURGATROYD is disappointed by an ambitious survey that fails to get to grips with the relationship between human consciousness and nature
READ THE BODY LANGUAGE: Merkel, Macron, Putin and Zelensky f
Books / 6 December 2024
6 December 2024
JOHN GREEN wades through the autobiography of Angela Merkel in search any trace of political vision or historical awareness
Books / 4 December 2024
4 December 2024
JOHN GREEN appreciates a stunning record of the pro-Palestinian demonstrations in London
(L to R) the book cover; Labour Party election poster 1945;
Books / 3 December 2024
3 December 2024
MICHAL BONCZA recommends a compact volume that charts the art of propagating ideas across the 20th century
Iman Aoun and Edward Muallem in Oranges and Stones
Best of 2024 / 3 December 2024
3 December 2024
A manifesto for change, feminism in the digital age and a wordless play by Palestinians
San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
Books / 29 November 2024
29 November 2024
ANDY HEDGECOCK recommends a deceptively short novella that is mysteriously bigger on the inside
THE MIGHT OF ASSOCIATION: Demonstrators in the Netherlands p
Books / 27 November 2024
27 November 2024
STEVEN ANDREW welcomes the third instalment of autobiography by a libertarian socialist whose political work is charged with Gramscian realism
MISUNDERSTOOD BRUTALIST GENIUS: Gordon Benson and Alan Forsy
Books / 27 November 2024
27 November 2024
Despite its anti-socialist bias, JOHN GREEN recommends a new survey of British architecture that seeks to educate and provoke
Letters from Latin America / 26 November 2024
26 November 2024
Short stories by Mexican Guadalupe Nettel, labyrinthine tales by Uruguayan Mario Levrero, and a poetic paranormal investigation by Colombian poet Catalina Vargas Tovar
THE TINTIN OF HIS ERA? WH Auden (R) and novelist Christopher
Books / 26 November 2024
26 November 2024
GORDON PARSONS negotiates an exhaustive biography of WH Auden that explores his growing detachment from England
THE UNACCEPTABLE FACE OF TECHNO-CAPITALISM: Entrepreneur Mar
Books / 22 November 2024
22 November 2024
JON BALDWIN recommends a well-informed survey of the ills promoted by AI tech corporations, and the measures needed to stop them exploiting us
AHEAD OF THEIR TIME: Shadow chancellor John McDonnell, deput
Books / 22 November 2024
22 November 2024
JOHN GREEN is disappointed by a marred critique of the British establishment by someone who was part of it
Refaat Alareer
Poetry review / 22 November 2024
22 November 2024
A remarkable posthumous collection of poetry and other writings is a tragic document of genocide, and a beacon of hope for a Palestinian future, says HENRY BELL
Popular support for the USSR was emphasised by the Arctic co
Books / 8 November 2024
8 November 2024
WILL PODMORE listens keenly to the people’s voice expressing support for the USSR and disdain for the political Establishment and the empire
Pedro Almodovar, 2017
Books / 8 November 2024
8 November 2024
ALAN McGUIRE recommends an autobiography that is an intriguing mix of short stories and personal sketches
Cedric Villani, the French mathematician, speaking at a publ
Books / 25 October 2024
25 October 2024
MATTHEW HAWKINS admires a writer with the gumption and wit to extend a transformative experience of autism to the reader
ANTI-WAR ACTIVISM: The original cast of the FTA (F*ck The Ar
Books / 25 October 2024
25 October 2024
STEVE JOHNSON recommends the autobiography of the great US singer-songwriter and activist, Barbara Dane
Morenci Mine in Arizona, United States. Morenci represents o
Books / 25 October 2024
25 October 2024
SUE TURNER is fascinated to read of another miners’ strike of the 1980s, told through the voices of women
DESPICABLE PASTIMES: John Ferneley, Edward Horner Reynard an
Books / 25 October 2024
25 October 2024
PAUL DONOVAN applauds a highly important book that appears at a crucial time in the present biodiversity and climate crisis
DOOMED: William Simpson’s depiction of the Charge of the L
Books / 16 October 2024
16 October 2024
JOHN GREEN recommends a history of the Black Sea peninsula, situated at a crossroads between Europe and Asia
Pier Paolo Pasolini as Chaucer in his film of The Canterbury
Books / 16 October 2024
16 October 2024
GORDON PARSONS recommends an ideal introduction to the writer who was first to give the English a literary language
Protestors take part in a demonstration, United for Educatio
Book Review / 11 October 2024
11 October 2024
MARTIN GRAHAM recommends an excellent starting point for unions and the wider movement for discussion of the housing crisis
Jacob Jordaens, The Four Evangelists, 1625–1630.
Books / 2 October 2024
2 October 2024
TOM PIERSCIONEK is fascinated by the place of slaves in the creation of Christian scripture
TRENCH HUMOUR: World War I soldiers of 3rd Battalion, New Ze
Books / 9 September 2024
9 September 2024
MARTIN HALL steps gingerly through a fragmentary novel about WWI by one of France’s greatest prose stylists, and most notorious fascist sympathisers