RON JACOBS welcomes a timely history of the Anti Imperialist league of America, and the role that culture played in their politics
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ALISTAIR FINDLAY recommends a brilliant collection of poems written to accompany stunning images of the Miners’ strike
SOWING DISCORD: A Leicester miner with a placard reflecting the media/Thatcher narrative (not in the book)
STEVE ANDREW appreciates a passionate account of the Scottish Club during the ‘lost decade’
By telling the story of a lawless frontier town from the point of view of the Lakota, Chinese labourers, prostitutes and displaced prospectors, makes for a potted history of capital, suggests ALEX HALL
TONY BURKE speaks to Gambian kora player SUNTOU SUSSO
MARIA DUARTE recommends a British boxing biopic about the stormy relationship between Nazeem Hamed and his trainer Brendan Ingle
ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review Good Night, and Good Luck: Live from Broadway, Becoming Victoria Wood, Hamnet, and Song Sung Blue
CHRIS SEARLE speaks to Filipino-US saxophonist JON IRABAGON about the threat of AI in the time of Musk and Trump, and how an artist can respond
Strike
Sarah Wimbush
Stairwell books £15
EVERYTHING the NUM predicted on its badges and posters during 1984-5 did come true.
There is no British coal industry left, not even in Nottingham. Youth unemployment in the former coalfields rocketed and has still not come down just as many former miners never worked again, spending their non-working years claiming dole not coal, which remained a cheap import from Poland.
What used to be called the working class are now the working poor and the absolutely skint.
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HEATHER WOOD pays tribute to a champion of working-class women and a fierce voice of solidarity
In the third extract from her new memoir, former NUM headquarters staffer HILARY CAVE recounts how women throughout the striking coalfields showed their mettle when the going got tough
Remembering KEN CAPSTICK, vice-president of the National Union of Mineworkers Yorkshire Area
Emphasising his continuous engagement in labour movement struggles, ALISTAIR FINDLAY salutes John Foster’s contribution as activist, strategist, intellectual and defender of the Morning Star