The Bard stands with the Reformers of Peterloo, and their shared genius in teaching history with music and song
‘Rock and pop music were the unexpected consequences of the working-class entering history’
BRETT GREGORY speaks with TOBY MANNING, author of Mixing Pop and Politics: A Marxist History of Popular Music
Little Richard, 1984
[Ian Dryden/Los Angeles Times/CC]
SUE TURNER is fascinated by a book that researches who the largely immigrant workforce were that built the Empire State
MARIA DUARTE and MALC McGOOKIN review Sirat, The Testament of Ann Lee, EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert, and All You Need Is Kill
STEVE ANDREW recommends a Marxist analysis of the long chains of production that global corporations exploit
MARY CONWAY relishes the period detail but misses the drama in this unsatisfactory dramatisation of the subjugated life of George Eliot
IAN SINCLAIR welcomes a mainstream scholar to the ranks of left-wing critique of US foreign policy
PETER MASON is disappointed that the eponymous Count fails to put in an appearance
WRITING in the Morning Star, Alistair Findley recommended this 565 page tome which “achieves the seemingly impossible by grounding high-level intellectual scholarship and theory within the popular culture of the day.”
So what initially inspired Manning to put pen to paper?
“I wrote the book after researching Marxist theory,” he says, “and I started to realise how much we skim over the surface of everything in the news and in our understanding of the world”.
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