December 2008

The Levellers and The Devil's Whore

The Levellers and the English Revolution
H.N. Brailsford
Edited by Christopher Hill

'To our generation fell the good fortune of re-discovering the Levellers. To the classical liberal historians they meant rather less than nothing. This neglect is puzzling. At the crisis of the English Revolution it was the Levellers and not from its commanders that the victorious New Model army derived its political ideas and its democratic drive.'
H.N. Brailsford.

The Levellers continue to inspire public interest. Free-born John Lilburne (pictured above) and Thomas Rainsborough are central to Channel 4's four part series about the English Civil War, The Devil's Whore.

For more information about Brailsford's seminal work and other relevant titles, please see The Levellers page.

November 2008

Ending War: A Recipe

By Robert Hinde

'Not this year, not in my lifetime, perhaps in yours, and with a strong probability in my grandchildren's lifetimes, war will be seen as an unacceptable way of settling disputes between states. The aim of this book is to hasten the day.' Robert Hinde, British Pugwash Group

The author was a Coastal Command Pilot, flying Catalinas and Sunderlands, in World War Two. After the war he worked as a biologist/psychologist at Cambridge University. He was appointed a Royal Society Research Professor in 1963, and was Master of St. John's College, Cambridge from 1989 to 1994. He is Deputy Chair (recently Chair) of the British Pugwash Group, Patron of the Movement for the Abolition of War, and Patron of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Awareness Programme. The British Pugwash Group is an affiliate of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, recipient of the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize.

October 2008

Tom Paine's Bi-centenary Celebrations

An early start to celebrations to mark Thomas Paine's
bi-centenary (he died in 1809) begin in November at Diss Corn Hall.

At 8pm on Friday 7th November Mark Steel kick starts the festivities, which continue through to June 2009, when Trevor Griffiths will read from his screenplay These Are The Times: A Life of Thomas Paine. Further details of this nearer the time.

For tickets to see Mark Steel contact Diss Library or Tourist Information Centre

Community Development Journal Seminar

The Politics of Community 40 Years on

To celebrate the Community Development Journal's 40th Year Anniversary, we have commissioned an International Reader of articles featured in the Journal during this period, which represent the richness and diversity in community development theory and practice, and its changing focus.

We are celebrating the Reader's launch with a free seminar, to be followed by refreshments. All are welcome, including students, practitioners, academics, policy-makers and anybody interested in the politics of community.

Friday 10 October 2008 2 - 4 pm

London South Bank University
Manor Lecture Theatre,
London Road Building
110 London Road, SE1 6LN

Panel:
Tony Benn
Amanda Greenwood, Community Development Xchange
Akwugo Emejulu, University of Strathclyde
Gary Craig, Co-Editor Community Development in Theory and Practice: An International Reader

Chair: Mandy Wilson, Community Development Journal

To book a place, please send your completed booking form to Sally Eserin at LSBU on eserins@lsbu.ac.uk

Please note, Elephant and Castle is the nearest tube station.

Truth and War - John Pilger

New Statesman - 29th September 2008
John Pilger writes:

... Two years ago, Stephen Cohen, professor of Russian Studies at New York University, wrote a landmark essay in the Nation which has now been reprinted in Britain.* He warns of the "gravest threats posed by the undeclared Cold War Washington has waged, under both parties, against post-communist Russia during the past 15 years". He describes a catastrophic "relentless winner-take-all of Russia's post-1991 weakness", with two-thirds of the population forced into poverty and life expectancy barely at 59. With most of us in the West unaware, Russia is being encircled by US and Nato bases and missiles in violation of a pledge by the United States not to expand Nato "one inch to the east". The result, writes Cohen, "is a US -built reverse iron curtain and a US denial that Russia has any legit­imate national interests outside its own territory, even in ethnically akin former republics such as Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia. [There is even] a presumption that Russia does not have full sovereignty within its own borders, as expressed by constant US interventions in Moscow’s internal affairs since 1992 ... the United States is attempting to acquire the nuclear superiority it could not achieve during the Soviet era."

This danger has grown rapidly as the American media again grow US -Russian relations as "a duel to the death - perhaps literally". The liberal Washington Post, says Cohen, "reads like a bygone Pravda on the Potomac". The same is true in Britain, with the regurgitation of propaganda that Russia was wholly responsible for the war in the Caucasus and must therefore be a "pariah". Sarah Palin, who may end up US president, says she is ready to attack Russia. The steady beat of this drum has seen Moscow return to its old nuclear alerts. Remember the 1980s, writes Cohen, "when the world faced exceedingly grave Cold War perils, and Mikhail Gorbachev unexpectedly emerged to offer a heretical way out. Is there an American leader today ready to retrieve that missed opportunity?" It is an urgent question that must be asked all over the world by those of us still unafraid to break the lethal silence.

*Stephen Cohen's article, The New American Cold War, is reprinted in full in the current issue of The Spokesman, published by the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation.

This is an exerpt from John Pilger's article. The full text is available at: http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2008/09/pilger-russia-british-britain

September 2008

The Convention of the Left

From Saturday 20th to Wednesday 24th September 2008 the Convention of the Left gathers together in Manchester under the banner 'Another World is Possible', at the same time as the Labour Party comes to town.

"This bold venture comes as a result of people from different left and radical traditions – or none – getting together in Greater Manchester to say that there IS an alternative ... "

Commencing at 12.30pm on Saturday with the Stop the War/CND demonstration, which assembles at All Saints, Cavendish Street, Manchester, the first session of the Convention follows at 3.00pm in the Friends Meeting House in Mount Street.

The Final Programme for the many events, meetings and discussions which are taking place over the five day Convention is available from www.conventionoftheleft.org. Wednesday is 'Peace' day and is a must for those who want to give Peace a chance.

Spokesman Books will attend the Covention. Copies of the new issue of The Spokesman - Tskhinvali: Shock and Awe will be on sale at the bookstall.

Tskhinvali

Georgia's War

"On 7th August 2008, President Saakashvili of Georgia launched an all-out military assault on the capital town of South Ossetia, Tskhinvali. The town was partly destroyed. Estimates of civilian deaths vary, between fifteen hundred and two thousand. Precise figures may become available quite soon, now that it is possible to recover and bury the dead*. Thirty-four thousand South Ossetians fled to the neighbouring territory of North Ossetia, which is part of the Federal Russian State, and they can all talk. They have been doing so incessantly, telling stories of untrammelled brutality ... "

This is an excerpt from Ken Coates' editorial in the most recent issue of The Spokesman

Read more about Georgia's War.

*On 28 August 2008, South Ossetia’s Prosecutor General reported that 1,692 deaths
resulted from Tbilisi’s August offensive. ‘We have information of 1,692 dead and 1,500 injured as a result of the Georgian aggression,’ Russian Interfax news agency quoted Teimuraz Khugayev as saying.

August 2008

No More Hiroshimas

It is 63 years since the first atomic bombs were dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; on the 6th and 9th of August respectively. Around the world this week many commemorative events are taking place. They include events in Leeds, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Germany, Austria, the USA and Canada. For details of what is happening in your area please go to the ICAN website.

Spokesman Books commemorates these events with a collection of poems by James Kirkup entitled No More Hiroshimas. In the preface the author explains the genesis of this little collection: 'These poems all have their roots in one late afternoon at the land workers’ hostel outside Ponteland, Northumberland. As we entered the hostel we got the news that the first American Atom Bomb had been dropped on Japan, on the city of Hiroshima. It was the first time we had heard of that place that was to become a universal symbol of man’s inhumanity towards his fellow men.’

No More Hiroshimas, the poem which gives the collection its title, can be read here.

July 2008

Tom Paine on Radio 4

'These Are The Times reads like the greatest of novels and is the most thrilling read I’ve had in years!' Kurt Vonnegut

These Are The Times: A Life of Thomas Paine.

Trevor Griffiths's screenplay broadcast on Radio 4. Read the discussions about it on their Message Boards.

Tom Paine arrives in America penniless just as the struggle for Independence is beginning. His ideas and his writings take him right to the heart of events and his words are read out to Washington's army. Jonathan Pryce played Thomas Paine in the radio production broadcast in two ninety-minute parts on Radio 4's Saturday Play, Saturday 26th July and concluding Saturday 2nd August 2008 (2.30 - 4pm on each day).

June 2008

A New Review for New Labour's Attack on Public Services

Mike Tolochko has recently reviewed our title New Labour's Attack on Public Services by Dexter Whitfield for the Monthly Journal of the CP-USA, Political Affairs Magazine

"Dexter Whitfield has given activists around the world a true primer on the ravenous, greedy attack on human services in general, but for health care in particular. His point-by-point description of the neo-liberal policies demanded by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization as they apply on-the-ground is nowhere else to be found ..."

read the full review from Mike Tolochko

Some penguins, a monkey, John Major's Y-fronts and Steve Bell

Steve Bell's cartoons have brightened the Guardian since 1981. We have long admired his work, and were chuffed to bits when he let us use his cartoons for the covers of Common Ownership: Clause IV and the Labour Party and a whole string of issues of The Spokesman, beginning with The Third Way to the Servile State.. On Sunday 22nd June he was at Lowdham to give an illustrative talk about his work.

The Lowdham Book Festival is in its ninth year. It ran from Friday 20th to Saturday 28th June 2008 and featured a whole host of guest speakers, musicians and workshops. On Saturday 28th the largest book fair in the county was in full swing and we at Spokesman Books had a stall selling a range of our titles including many issues of The Spokesman which feature Steve Bell's cartoons. It was a great day, the sun shone for us, and we sold quite a few of our titles.

PayPal

Spokesman Books is delighted to announce we now accept PayPal payments.

If you have a PayPal account simply click on 'PayPal' from the drop down menu bar in the checkout pages and follow the instructions.

May 2008

1968 and all that

Spokesman Books recently participated in the '1968 and all that' international conference and bookfair in London.

In addition to our current titles, we took along Rudi Dutschke's The Students and the Revolution and Andrée Hoyles' Imagination in Power -- The Occupation of Factories in France in 1968, two early ones which still figure in our back catalogue.

The Conway Hall in Red Lion Square was abuzz with workshops throughout the day, including a series in the Bertrand Russell Room. The generation of '68 was well represented. But many of the people who came to our stall were much younger. They wanted to know what Spokesman Books are doing, and we hope you will, too.

40 years on from the 'événements' in Paris during that eventful May, there was a rich progamme of events and speakers thoughout the day. They included:

Peter Gowan on the Prague Spring

Maggie Torres on Anarchism in Spain

Albert Beale on Militant Pacifism

Estvan Meszaros on the Credit Crunch and the New Capitalist Crisis