Reviews

Winston Churchill: his times, his crimes

An enduring memory from my youth is of my father returning from the pub telling me how he had been taking bets on how long Churchill, by now very ill, would survive. He died shortly after (24 January 1965). The memory hardly fits with the usual image of a cult of hero-worship around Churchill. Some of the views of Tariq Ali have been rightly criticised in Solidarity , but in his new book Winston Churchill: His Times, His Crimes he has produced a powerful exposé of the Churchill myth and all the accumulated nonsense that it carries in its slipstream. Churchill was never the “hero” that post-war...

A good start, but there’s more

On the first glance Eve Livingston’s book Make Bosses Pay is a good basis for any young wide-eyed lefty wanting to understand the trade union movement. The book gives an easy-to-understand overview of British trade unionism while also focusing on issues young people face in the movement. The book gives a historical basis for where we are today, in part touching on the anti-union laws that shackle collective power. Livingston addresses the demoralisation many activists feel when they join unions and find they are met with the apathy of bureaucracy and inaction, telling the reader, “your union...

Euphoria rather than dysphoria

Many narratives and testimonials about trans and non-binary people talk about negative experiences, tragedies, difficulties. Discussion is focused on dysphoria, misgendering, and all the associated harms. Regrettably, a great deal of discourse is spent on scare stories around “the surgeries”, which makes people questioning their genders see coming out to be a scary and dangerous thing. Juno Roche, in their book Gender Explorers , goes for an entirely different approach, one invoking euphoria, rather than dysphoria, and one which prides exploration, joy, and authenticity over conservatism. The...

Unions: the potential for resurgence

With the cost-of-living crisis in full swing, it would not be illogical to foresee potential for unions to become resurgent again. So, what light do Pluto Press’s three books from 2021 shed on the challenges facing unions here? They are Eve Livingston’s Make Bosses Pay: Why We Need Unions , Jane Hardy’s Nothing to Lose But Our Chains: Work and Resistance in Twenty-First-Century Britain and Jane Holgate’s Arise: Power, Strategy and Union Resurgence . All involved undertaking interviews with activists and those working for unions. Yet they are pitched in different ways. Livingston’s is more of a...

Debate on Graeber and Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything

Debate on The Dawn of Everything: a new history of humanity , by David Graeber and David Wengrow A new history of humanity , by Clive Bradley Stuck in the night of everything? , by Martin Thomas Primacy to culture above material circumstance , by Paul Muddle

Primacy to culture above material circumstance

In his review of “The Dawn of Everything; A new history of humanity” (2nd November 2021) Clive Bradley wonders whether David Graeber and David Wengrow’s challenge to orthodoxy , including Marxism, “is as profound as they think, or if in fact it’s possible to integrate their findings into a historical materialist account”. Judging by the reaction from some other Marxist reviewers the answer is a resounding “no” on both counts (two critiques in The Monthly Review found that, among other things, Graeber and Wengrow were “voluntarist”). Clive sees the emphasis on human agency as one of the great...

Stuck in the night of everything?

A left-wing anthropologist has written that the title of David Graeber's and David Wengrow's new book, The Dawn of Everything, should instead be The Tea-Time of Everything, because it covers only "relatively recent prehistory". It also scarcely mentions "history", in the sense of accounts based on written records, so the subtitle A New History of Humanity is also off-key. Graeber, an anthropologist, and Wengrow, an archaeologist, write mostly about hunter-gatherer societies of which there are substantial records; early agricultural societies; and the societies of "something in the order of 3...

Argument over Malm: Much ado about nothing

Paul Vernadsky’s critiques of Andreas Malm — Malm’s politics and wider writings — have much to agree with and of value. Yet Paul writes as if he has a major and profound disagreement with me on this — which is false. My article reviewed Fossil Capital , which I felt — as I wrote — contained interesting and useful historical exposition and analysis, but little wider value: “ Fossil Capital is a stimulating and gripping read. It valuably reveals how the burning of fossil fuels has been deeply entwined with capital since capitalism's birth, remaining central to it… He has much less to offer on...

United Ireland, politics and "economism"

Kieran Allen’s latest book, 32 Counties: The Failure of Partition and the Case for a United Ireland , is a valuable polemical addition to the debates surrounding Ireland, Brexit, the prospect of a “Border Poll”, and Irish unification. It is most useful as a crisp historical account of partition and its political effects but less convincing as a justification for Allen’s current political perspectives. Allen is a leading figure in the Socialist Workers Network (SWN), the largest component of People Before Profit (PBP). The PBP coalition has elected representatives in the Dail, Stormont and...

A starting point on left antisemitism

David Osland reviews Daniel Randall's Confronting Antisemitism on the Left (£9.99 plus post, available here ) For something many socialists don’t even think exists, recent years have seen a surfeit of literature on left antisemitism. Three of this spate of books already sit on my shelves: Dave Rich’s The Left’s Jewish Problem , which includes a page or two on my own distant political past; David Hirsh’s Contemporary Left Antisemitism ; and Israel and the European Left by Colin Shindler. So the obvious question for any reviewer to start with is, why another? And my answer would be, because this...

This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.