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An exemplary activist
STEVEN ANDREW welcomes the third instalment of autobiography by a libertarian socialist whose political work is charged with Gramscian realism
THE MIGHT OF ASSOCIATION: Demonstrators in the Netherlands protest against Clause 28 during a state visit by Queen Elizabeth II to the country in July 1988

Reasons to Rebel 
Sheila Rowbotham, Merlin Press, £17.99

 

FOR those unfortunate enough never to have come across the exemplary writing and dedicated activism of Sheila Rowbotham, it is important to set out from the start that from my perspective, she is one of the most important socialist and feminist academics of our era.

Not only do all of her more historical studies remain widely available but she has now released a third autobiographical volume, Reasons To Rebel, that covers the 1980s pretty much until the present day. Her earlier memoirs Promise Of A Dream (Verso, 2019) and Daring To Hope (Verso, 2021) respectively document her experiences of the 1960s and 1970s.

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