Reviews of A New Kind Of Wilderness, The Marching Band, Good One and Magic Farm by MARIA DUARTE, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MICHAL BONCZA
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Winning hearts and minds
JONATHAN WHITE recommends a key study that shows how language is vital to the mobilisation of the class and the development of consciousness
THE LANGUAGE OF CLASS MEMORY: A sculpture designed by Gordon Young depicting the killing of cotton mill workers during the Plug Plot Riots in 1842 was unveiled in front of the Preston Cotton Exchange on the 150th anniversary of the riot, in August 1992
SCOTT ALSWORTH foresees the coming of the smaller, leaner, and class conscious indie studio, with art as its guiding star
MARJORIE MAYO recommends an accessible and unsettling novel that uses a true incident of death in the Channel to raise questions of wider moral responsibility
MIK SABIERS wallows in a night of political punk and funk that fires both barrels at Trump
Reasonable radicalism, death in Abu Dhabi, locked-room romance, and sleuthing in the Blitz
SIMON DUFF recommends a new album from renowned composer and oud player Anour Brahem.
JAMES WALSH has a great night in the company of basketball players, quantum physicists and the exquisite timing of Rosie Jones
Languages of Class Struggle: Communication and Mass Mobilisation in Britain and Ireland 1842-1972
John Foster (Praxis Press, £25)
IN 1847, Karl Marx wrote that in the process of struggle the working class is transformed from being a class against capital into a class “for itself,” consciously struggling to change the social order.
Throughout his career, from his ground-breaking book Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution onwards, John Foster’s work can be seen as a dialogue with this idea.
What are the concrete conditions in which class consciousness can develop? Exactly how do classes mobilise and reach the point where they start to pose a challenge to state power? How does consciousness change in the process of struggle and what role do leaders play in this process? What is left over when mobilisations end?
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by Alistair Findlay
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
ELAINE MCFARLAND and JIM WHISTON introduce a collection of essays published in honour of Professor John Foster
Ben Chacko talks to TYEHIMBA NOSAKHERE, co-author of a new GMB-produced book about the incredible stories of trailblazers for racial equality