Britain funds the policing of black culture 16 times better than the culture itself. The Diamond Jubilee is the moment to end that, argues CLAUDIA WEBBE
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Two great ‘state of the nation’ summer reads
SOLOMON HUGHES recommends two novels that offer a social panorama on the way we live now
Growing instability in the US economy and financial markets could have serious consequences worldwide because of the central role of the US dollar and financial system, argues MICHAEL BURKE
Despite Andy Burnham’s declaration defending the continued partition of the island, all major international and internal trends are converging to make Irish reunification inevitable
Humans are part of the ‘animal kingdom’ – and of nature in general – but also distinct from it and labour (work) is part of what makes us unique, declared Engels. His insights 150 years ago into how our species came to be and how we differ from the rest of nature, are as important today as they were then, says the MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY
Growing instability in the US economy and financial markets could have serious consequences worldwide because of the central role of the US dollar and financial system, argues MICHAEL BURKE
From Margate to Deal, mining memories are being kept alive. National co-ordinator for General Strike 100, HENRY FOWLER continued his nationwide tour of partner organisations in the Garden of England
I’M ALWAYS on the lookout for what get called “State of the Nation” novels, so was pleased to have come across two of them in the wild recently.
A full-on State of the Nation novel is the kind of social panorama that takes in many levels of society and shows up social issues, a fiction that exposes social exploitation, like Dickens, or describes “The Way We Live Now,” like Trollope’s satire on corruption in Victorian Britain.
A lot of fiction has a very narrow focus on the personal lives of the comfortably off, so fiction doesn’t really have to be a “panorama” to get called “State of the Nation” — it can just present some view of people who worry about how to pay the bills as well as how to live their emotional lives.
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