GEOFF BOTTOMS relishes a profoundly human portrait of a family as it evolves across 55 years in Sheffield
The common cause
RICHARD MURGATROYD welcomes the modern relevance of a history of the expropriation of common lands for private profit
LANDMARK PROTEST: 80th anniversary of of the 1932 Mass Trespass in the Peak District: Singer and broadcaster Mike Harding (centre), flanked by (from left to right) Kate Ashbrook, President of the Ramblers; Dame Fiona Reynolds Director General of the National Trust; Broadcaster Stuart Maconie and Harry Rothman, son of trespass leader Benny Rothman
PAUL DONOVAN applauds an excellently crafted new musical that explores the life and death of Ruth Ellis
PAUL DONOVAN is tickled by the excruciating take-downs of one of the funniest, wittiest, political writers around.
RON JACOBS points out, via a transcription of Kissinger’s secret recordings, that Trump could never have existed without Nixon and Kissinger
ELLIS RAE is persuaded that the advantages of the ‘talking cure’ are superior to the treatment of mental illness with drugs
JOHN GREEN, MICHAL BONCZA and BELLA KATZ review The Good Boy, Broken English, and Don't Be Prey
The War Against the Commons: Dispossession and Resistance in the Making of Capitalism
By Ian Angus
Monthly Review Press, New York, £18.99
A GOOD history book makes you think about the present.
On the day I finished Ian Angus’s The War Against the Commons I visited my local station ticket office. The queue was long and I had time to look around and reflect. Once all this great building, this marvel of engineering, this vital service, had been publicly owned, part of the modern “commons.” Even now in its privatised state there remained some good elements – like the expert and helpful staff in the ticket office which the train-lords and rentier bankers were planning to evict!
So, Angus’s book is timely indeed.
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BEN CHACKO welcomes a masterful analysis that puts class struggle back at the heart of our understanding of China’s revolution
JOHN GREEN wades through a pessimistic prophesy that does not consider the need for radical change in political and social structures
GUILLERMO THOMAS recommends a useful book aimed at informing activists with local examples of solidarity in action around the world
This year’s march and swim in a reservoir in the Peak District will continue the fight for 'access for all' in a nation where 92 per cent of land remains inaccessible to the public, writes SHAILA SHOBNAM