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John Green
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Film of the week / 1 May 2025
1 May 2025

JOHN GREEN recommends a German comedy that celebrates the old GDR values of solidarity, community and a society not dominated by consumerism

Mural depicting the symbol of the revolution - a soldier with a carnation in the barrel of his gun; People celebrating on top of a tank in Lisbon during the Carnation Revolution of April 25 1974 / Pics: IsmailKupeli/CC; Public domain
Books / 24 April 2025
24 April 2025

JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal

PULLING NO PUNCHES: Activists from the feminist campaign gro
Features / 17 April 2025
17 April 2025

Mountains of research show that hardcore material harms children, yet there are still no simple measures in place

(L to R) How many Aunties?, Back Hares Mount, Leeds, 1978; M
Photography / 14 April 2025
14 April 2025

Peter Mitchell's photography reveals a poetic relationship with Leeds

TOUR DE FORCE: for Ralph Fiennes as Odysseus
Film of the week / 10 April 2025
10 April 2025
Odysseus’s homecoming myth is treated as a factual story, with strong resonances for our contemporary world. This is an implicit anti-war film that has an urgent relevance, writes JOHN GREEN
LABORATORY OF BULLYING: A scene from Ken Loach's Kes
Books / 27 March 2025
27 March 2025
JOHN GREEN recommends an entertaining, if harsh and instructive, study of bullying, discipline and power dynamics in schools and at work
MASTERMIND; (L) Jon Pertwee as Dr Who in Invasion of the Din
Books / 13 March 2025
13 March 2025
JOHN GREEN surveys the remarkable career of screenwriter Malcolm Hulke and the essential part played by his membership of the Communist Party
CRUNCH TIME: Voters queue outside a polling station in Nuuk,
Features / 12 March 2025
12 March 2025
As climate change makes vast mineral deposits accessible, the island’s 56,000 residents face unprecedented pressure from Trump’s territorial ambitions while struggling to maintain their traditional way of life, writes JOHN GREEN
KNOWLEDGE FOR ALL: Wycliffe's Bible in the British Library -
Books / 29 January 2025
29 January 2025
JOHN GREEN is dissatisfied with a book that fails to address the promotion of ignorance as a ruling-class strategy to maintain control
REALITY DENIED: Concert in the foyer of the Palast der Repub
Books / 28 January 2025
28 January 2025
JOHN GREEN takes issue with a mainstream novel designed to denigrate the GDR
IDEOLOGICAL CLARITY: East German propaganda against former N
Books / 22 January 2025
22 January 2025
JOHN GREEN advises caution when reading a highly informative account of the way thousands of top Nazis escaped justice and found employment in the West
RISING RIGHT: Activists wearing masks of far-right politicia
Features / 6 January 2025
6 January 2025
Driven on by novel forms of hard-right populism like Modi and Trump, European neofascists are skillfully rebranding themselves and taking power by copying the left's language — just as they did in the last century, writes JOHN GREEN
Illustrations Sue Coe
Books / 18 December 2024
18 December 2024
JOHN GREEN debates the potential of a book that explores fascism in US history and its contemporary impact to reach the audience it deserves
READ THE BODY LANGUAGE: Merkel, Macron, Putin and Zelensky f
Books / 6 December 2024
6 December 2024
JOHN GREEN wades through the autobiography of Angela Merkel in search any trace of political vision or historical awareness
Books / 4 December 2024
4 December 2024
JOHN GREEN appreciates a stunning record of the pro-Palestinian demonstrations in London
MISUNDERSTOOD BRUTALIST GENIUS: Gordon Benson and Alan Forsy
Books / 27 November 2024
27 November 2024
Despite its anti-socialist bias, JOHN GREEN recommends a new survey of British architecture that seeks to educate and provoke
DOOMED: William Simpson’s depiction of the Charge of the L
Books / 16 October 2024
16 October 2024
JOHN GREEN recommends a history of the Black Sea peninsula, situated at a crossroads between Europe and Asia
Consuelo Kanaga. Young Girl in Profile, 1948.
Books / 3 October 2024
3 October 2024
JOHN GREEN marvels at the rediscovery of a radical US photographer who took the black civil rights movement to her heart
SOLIDARITY: Parents, activists and special needs assistants
Books / 5 September 2024
5 September 2024
JOHN GREEN recommends a useful how-to guide for teaching children with special needs, aimed at those working in education
Cartoon: Songi
Features / 24 July 2024
24 July 2024
Behind the superficial glitter of the Republican election campaign, lie big money interests and an assortment of extreme right-wing groups – including white supremacists, anti-semites and bizarre conspiracy theorists, warns JOHN GREEN
TEACHING MATERIALS: pages from Michal Rosen and Jeff Perks's
Exhibition preview / 28 June 2024
28 June 2024
JOHN GREEN applauds the clarity with which an upcoming exhibition and book make plain Britain's role in the slave trade
CARNATION REVOLUTIONARY: Celeste Caeiro, 90, holds red carna
Features / 25 April 2024
25 April 2024
Covering the revolt for East German television 50 years ago, JOHN GREEN witnessed first-hand how the revolution blossomed and withered, as anti-worker and reformist forces aligned to keep the Communist Party from power
FREE AT LAST: Huge crowds at May Day 1974
Features / 25 April 2024
25 April 2024
In part one of two articles, JOHN GREEN recounts his experience covering the fall of Portugal’s 41-year-old dictatorship in 24 hours, a remarkable moment of unity and hope, as the masses embraced freedom
OF THE PEOPLE FOR THE PEOPLE: Mayor Andy Burnham proudly sho
Books / 4 April 2024
4 April 2024
With respect for the authors’ intentions, JOHN GREEN demonstrates the lack of class consciousness that undermines their critique of dysfunctional Britain
Jeremy Corbyn addresses supporters at a rally in Willen Lake
Features / 2 April 2024
2 April 2024
As more and more voices on the left contemplate the necessity and viability of a new vehicle for elections to fill the void left by Labour’s violent lurch to the right, JOHN GREEN assesses the terrain — and what not to do
Miller Brewery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Book Review / 26 March 2024
26 March 2024
JOHN GREEN finds an ideal travelling companion as he works his way from New England to Florida
ERASING A CULTURE: A mosque destroyed in an Israeli strike i
Features / 1 March 2024
1 March 2024
Israeli tactics of obliterating the built and natural environments of Gaza remind JOHN GREEN of the methods he saw used by the reactionary forces of Renamo in Mozambique following its liberation from Portuguese colonial rule
Palestinian refugees, initially displaced to the Gaza beach
Books / 23 February 2024
23 February 2024
JOHN GREEN recommends a stunning collection of images that is testament to the vibrancy of Palestinian society prior to occupation
SKEWED VIEW: George Orwell at the BBC, 1940; and anarchists�
Books / 22 February 2024
22 February 2024
JOHN GREEN recommends an excellent survey of the involvement of the British state, and British volunteers, in the Spanish Civil War
Israeli soldiers move near the Israeli-Gaza border as seen f
Opinion / 10 January 2024
10 January 2024
From working closely with Apartheid South Africa to develop its nuclear weapons to supplying the far-right terrorists in Nicaragua with their famous Uzis, Israel has always been a malevolent force internationally, writes JOHN GREEN
Former US vice president Henry Wallace
Features / 28 December 2023
28 December 2023
JOHN GREEN tells the largely forgotten story of Roosevelt’s progressive vice-president who wanted to pursue a more collaborative approach with the USSR — but was cheated out of the Democratic nomination by Truman
SITUATION ROOM: Walt Rostow shows President Lyndon B. Johnso
Books / 7 December 2023
7 December 2023
JOHN GREEN appreciates a meticulous dissection of Lyndon Johnson’s presidency that exposes  political and economic structures in the US
LIFTING SPIRITS: Members of La Barraca Republican mobile the
Book Review / 24 October 2023
24 October 2023
JOHN GREEN is unimpressed by a novel that simply borrows the civil war as a backdrop
The debt phenomenon is not just found in the housing market
Features / 15 October 2023
15 October 2023
Far from being opposed to it, capitalism depends on debt as a way of enforcing loyalty to the profit system from those that have the least to gain from it, explains JOHN GREEN
SUPERIOR: (L to R) Working day of a miner by Frank Ruddigkei
Opinion / 25 September 2023
25 September 2023
The recently discovered collection of artworks at the Wismut mine from GDR period challenges ‘received wisdom’ about socialist art, writes JOHN GREEN
Images: Maryam Firuzi; Nowhere Near, Alisa Martynova
Interview / 22 August 2023
22 August 2023
Three internationally renowned female photographers, whose work combines visual innovation, aesthetic brilliance and militancy, talk to JOHN GREEN
NATION BUILDER: Statue of Timur (Tamerlane) by Ivan Jabbarov
Book Review / 13 August 2023
13 August 2023
JOHN GREEN welcomes a new history that makes the reader question both origins and national identities
Coal Mining
Culture / 1 August 2023
1 August 2023
JOHN GREEN marvels at a vision of working-class lives in the industrial Midlands, pre-Thatcher
WISHFUL THINKING? Created by the Soviet sculptor Evgeniy Vuc
Features / 26 July 2023
26 July 2023
Capitalism drives modern warfare — but our species has waged determined and passionate campaigns of murder against each other long before its arrival. How can we begin to explain this, asks JOHN GREEN
Pontcysyllte in Wales was constructed using cast iron water
Features / 11 May 2023
11 May 2023
JOHN GREEN looks at the Britain’s canal network, its historical arteries
Harry Belafonte
Obituary / 27 April 2023
27 April 2023
JOHN GREEN pays tribute to the activism of a man of political fearlessness 
FEATHERED FRIENDS: An RSPB handout photo of a swallow
Features / 14 April 2023
14 April 2023
Where do swallows go over winter, asks JOHN GREEN
King Charles III, Dietmar Woidke, prime minister of Brandenb
Features / 31 March 2023
31 March 2023
The King was probably attracted to the organic farming methods at the largest ‘biodynamic’ farm in Germany, rather than the politics behind them, muses JOHN GREEN
Disgraced Brazilian Evangelical pastor Magno Malta, a staunc
Book Review / 31 March 2023
31 March 2023
JOHN GREEN takes issue with a well-researched but politically naive history of the evangelical churches in Latin America
Features / 24 March 2023
24 March 2023
JOHN GREEN reports on rewilding attempts in the capital and beyond in order to give a boost to rare or endangered wildlife
Sami Reindeer herding, Sweden
Books / 14 March 2023
14 March 2023
JOHN GREEN is fascinated to read a crime thriller written from the point of view of Europe’s northern indigenous people
Vika Ivanova (cover), 2009; Liza Vysotskaya on Epiphany, 201
Books / 17 February 2023
17 February 2023
JOHN GREEN yearns for the real-life stories behind a fairy-tale photobook of rural Russian life
WITCH HUNT: (L to R) Arthur Miller in October 1961; screenwr
Opinion / 9 February 2023
9 February 2023
On the anniversary of playwright Arthur Miller’s death JOHN GREEN explores the impact of anti-communist paranoia on his work
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: A container of waste is excavated fr
Book Review / 29 January 2023
29 January 2023
JOHN GREEN recommends an exposé of dangerous malpractice at the oldest and largest nuclear site in the US
‘NO TO WAR, snow grafitti on a housing estate in Petrozavo
Book Review / 6 January 2023
6 January 2023
None of the poets in this collection reveal any understanding whatsoever of the politics involved or the context, writes JOHN GREEN
END OF AN EPOCH: The earliest known image of a cotton mill d
Book Review / 3 January 2023
3 January 2023
Features / 29 November 2022
29 November 2022
Tapping with your phone, using chip and pin, paying online — it all seems so much easier than notes and coins. But nothing pushed by big tech and the financial industry giants is in our favour, argues JOHN GREEN
Pablo Milanes in Havana in 2019
Obituary / 27 November 2022
27 November 2022
(February 24 1943 – November 22 2022)
EXISTENTIAL THREAT: The closing of marketplaces and the erad
Film / 24 November 2022
24 November 2022
PAST REVISITED? (L to R) Solidarity with Julian Assange demo
Opinion / 22 November 2022
22 November 2022
JOHN GREEN sees uncomfortable parallels between the demise of ancient Greece and the accelerating decline faced today by Britain and the US
(L to R) Stanhope Forbes, Sheffield - River and Smoking Chim
Exhibition / 16 November 2022
16 November 2022
JOHN GREEN previews an exhibition that celebrates the human interrelationship with water
Amer Hlehel and Ashraf Farah in Mediterranean Fever
Palestinian Film Festival / 13 November 2022
13 November 2022
JOHN GREEN reports from the Leeds Palestinian Film Festival 2022
WORKING CLASS HEROINES: Few outside of the UK’s former min
Interview / 28 September 2022
28 September 2022
John Green talks to EMILY INGRAM whose moving documentary charts the remarkable resilience of Doncaster women at the time of the miners’ strike of 1984
STATE TERROR: (L to R) Mark Turnbull, Terry Renshaw, Harry C
Book Review / 25 September 2022
25 September 2022
The Shrewsbury 24 case was a travesty of justice on a unprecedented scale, writes JOHN GREEN