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For more than a hundred years, the British Labour Party has been the home of working-class organization and struggle. But has it ever truly been on the side of workers? Where do its interests really lie, and can it be relied on to provide a check on right-wing forces?
            A Party with Socialists in It addresses those questions and more, telling the story of the Labour Party from its origins to today, showing how at every turn it has struggled with the tension between the rights and demands of workers and a more centrist position. As Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership attempts to revitalize the party after the initial success of the Blair years turned into disappointment and disenchantment, this clear-eyed history could not be more timely.
 

A smart and succinct history of the Labour left

*A Guardian Book of the Day*

The defeat of socialist firebrand Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Leader in 2019 confirmed Tony Benn's famous retort 'the Labour party has never been a socialist party, although there have always been socialists in it.'

For over a hundred years, the British Labour Party has been a bastion for working-class organization and struggle. However, has it ever truly been on the side of the workers? Where do its interests really lie? And can we rely on it to provide a barrier against right-wing forces?

Simon Hannah's smart and succinct history of the Labour left guides us through the twists and turns of the party, from the Bevanite movement and the celebrated government of Clement Attlee, through the emergence of a New Left in the 1970s and the Blairism of the 1990s, to Corbyn's defeat and his replacement by Keir Starmer.

This new edition is updated throughout, with a new final chapter and conclusion bringing the story up to date.

Codiscoverer of the theory of evolution by natural selection, Alfred Russel Wallace should be recognized as one of the titans of Victorian science. Instead he has long been relegated to a secondary place behind Darwin. Worse, many scholars have overlooked or even mocked his significant contributions to other aspects of Victorian culture. With An Elusive Victorian, Martin Fichman provides the first comprehensive analytical study of Wallace's life and controversial intellectual career.

Fichman examines not only Wallace's scientific work as an evolutionary theorist and field naturalist but also his philosophical concerns, his involvement with theism, and his commitment to land nationalization and other sociopolitical reforms such as women's rights. As Fichman shows, Wallace worked throughout his life to integrate these humanistic and scientific interests. His goal: the development of an evolutionary cosmology, a unified vision of humanity's place in nature and society that he hoped would ensure the dignity of all individuals.

To reveal the many aspects of this compelling figure, Fichman not only reexamines Wallace's published works, but also probes the contents of his lesser known writings, unpublished correspondence, and copious annotations in books from his personal library. Rather than consider Wallace's science as distinct from his sociopolitical commitments, An Elusive Victorian assumes a mutually beneficial relationship between the two, one which shaped Wallace into one of the most memorable characters of his time. Fully situating Wallace's wide-ranging work in its historical and cultural context, Fichman's innovative and insightful account will interest historians of science, religion, and Victorian culture as well as biologists.

Rick Kuhn’s Henryk Grossman and the Recovery of Marxism is the definitive study of the life and work of this renowned economist, activist, and intellectual. As a young man, Grossman joined the socialist movement and participated in Jewish workers' strikes and demonstrations, as well as in boycotts against employers and the Austro-Hungarian state. He moved to Vienna, but was driven back to Poland by the Austrian state's racist citizenship policies. A member of the illegal Polish Communist Party, Grossman was frequently arrested and jailed, finally leaving Poland for a post at the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt am Main, which gave rise to the famous 'Frankfurt School'. 

Grossman published his best known work in Frankfurt, including studies of Marx's method in Capital and theories of economic crisis that remain influential today. In tracing Grossman's experiences, from Kraków to New York, and offering a detailed account of his ideas, the biography provides an intimate account of key events in twentieth century history, including the politicization of east European Jewry, the World Wars, the rise of Stalinism and Nazism, and the cold war.

Bryan D. Palmer's award-winning study of James P. Cannon's early years (1890-1928) details how the life of a Wobbly hobo agitator gave way to leadership in the emerging communist underground of the 1919 era. This historical drama unfolds alongside the life experiences of a native son of United States radicalism, the narrative moving from Rosedale, Kansas to Chicago, New York, and Moscow. Written with panache, Palmer's richly detailed book situates American communism's formative decade of the 1920s in the dynamics of a specific political and economic context. Our understanding of the indigenous currents of the American revolutionary left is widened, just as appreciation of the complex nature of its interaction with international forces is deepened.

Known best for articulating the propaganda of the deed, Johann Most was and still is caricatured as a radical fanatic. Tom Goyens’ in-depth biography rediscovers the complexities that animated the German American agitator and made him a pivotal figure in the development of anarchism in the US and socialism in Germany. Most galvanized workers through passionate speeches and writings that showcased his gifts as a performer, satirist, and rhetorician. Numerous challenges, including repeated convictions for his incendiary rhetoric, failed to curb his organizing or his efforts to foster a dedicated network of comrades that included Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and his common-law wife, Helene Minkin. Goyens details Most’s essential contributions to the anarchist movement while also highlighting his critique of religion and defense of science within emancipatory movements. As Goyens follows Most’s ideological journey, he illuminates the political contexts that shaped the anarchist’s evolving views on revolutionary action and social change. Comprehensive and long overdue, Johann Most traces the intellectual life and enduring relevance of a misunderstood radical figure.

“I am not here, then, as the accused; I am here as the accuser of capitalism dripping with blood from head to foot.”—John Maclean, Speech from the Dock, 1918
 
Feared by the government, adored by workers, celebrated by Lenin and Trotsky. The head of British Military Intelligence called John Maclean (1879–1923) “the most dangerous man in Britain.”
            This new biography explores the events that shaped the life of a momentous man—from the Great War and the Great Unrest to the Rent Strike and the Russian Revolution. It examines his work as an organizer and educator, his imprisonment and hunger strike, and his rise to the position of Britain’s most famous revolutionary. At a moment when radical politics is drawing renewed attention and support, Maclean’s example of activism and commitment is as timely as ever.
 

Margaret Storm Jameson (1891–1986) is primarily known as a compelling essayist; her stature as a novelist and champion of the dispossessed is largely forgotten. In Life in the Writings of Storm Jameson, Elizabeth Maslen reveals a figure who held her own beside fellow British women writers, including Virginia Woolf; anticipated the Angry Young Women, such as Doris Lessing; and was an early champion of such European writers as Arthur Koestler and Czesław Miłosz. Jameson was a complex character whose politics were grounded in social justice; she was passionately antifascist—her novel In the Second Year (1936) raised the alarm about Nazism—but always wary of communism. An eloquent polemicist, Jameson was, as president of the British P.E.N. during the 1930s and 1940s, of invaluable assistance to refugee writers. Elizabeth Maslen’s biography introduces a true twentieth century hedgehog, whose essays and subtly experimental fiction were admired in Europe and the States.

Lithuanian Social Democracy in Perspective is the first book in any Western language on Lithuanian Social Democracy. In this work Leonas Sabaliunas studies the conflict between and convergence of socialism and nationalism in pre-1914 Lithuania. He analyzes the interplay of ideological priorities by observing the operations of Marxist political parties, emphasizing the origins, development, and achievements of the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania.
But Sabaliunas also considers such partners and rivals as the Jewish Bund, the Polish Socialist Party, the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, and the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. He focuses on the appearance of socialist parties at the local level, the politics of assertive behavior during the Russian Revolution of 1905–1906, the nature of interparty relations, and efforts to promote party unity. In particular, he investigates the projected relationship between Russia and its subject nationalities—a cardinal concern today as the Baltic peoples attempt to distance themselves from their Russian neighbors.
Sabaliunas clarifies current massive Lithuanian opposition to Moscow and to its version of socialism. He stresses that in Lithuania the socialist movement from the beginning not only sought solutions to social and economic problems but also addressed issues of ethnic and national interest, especially the question of national sovereignty.

Rebel against Injustice, a carefully crafted biography of Frank P. O'Hare (1877-1960), socialist, political activist, editor, and husband of prominent radical Kate Richards O'Hare, is the first study of a much-neglected but important figure of the American Left whose contributions are often referred to, in passing, in many other works.

Abandoned by his father at the age of four, O'Hare grew up in the Kerry Patch slum of St. Louis. Although he began his career in business, O'Hare turned to socialism with the sublime dream of bringing about a better world. While attending a school for Socialist organizers, he met Kate Richards, and the young couple forged a personal and professional partnership. Settling in Oklahoma, the O'Hares helped build a strong grassroots movement through grueling lecture tours and colorful camp meetings. In 1911, Frank, his wife, and their four children moved to St. Louis, where they transformed the National Rip-Saw into a popular Socialist monthly magazine. It was there that Frank found his niche as a Socialist impresario, editing the writings and arranging the tours of his "stars," Kate O'Hare and Eugene Debs.

A series of calamities, including the breakup of his marriage, brought Frank O'Hare near the edge of despair in the mid-1920s. Divorcing and remarrying, he made a new life in St. Louis. Plunging back into radical activism, he worked for the Federated Press syndicate. During the last twenty years of his life, O'Hare wrote for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, worked as a business consultant, and continued his involvement as a community activist in St. Louis. Although Frank O'Hare has long been dismissed as a lost soul without Kate Richards O'Hare, Rebel against Injustice shows that he continued to be a presence in St. Louis and never stopped his fight against injustice. In 1958, a Teamster newspaper referred to O'Hare as "one of the truly great men of St. Louis--possibly the ONLY one."

Based upon a close study of the largely untapped Frank P. O'Hare papers, this well-written biography will enlighten readers about the organizational choices behind the success of American Socialism, while shedding new light on the lives and activities of many prominent American radicals.

Revolutionary Marxist activist Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) has long been a major inspiration for activists on the left. But what can we learn from looking closely at her life today? Jon Nixon answers that question here, offering a clear, concise account of Luxemburg’s biography and thought and setting it in relation to contemporary economic, political, and social debates. Nixon presents Luxemburg as not only an activist, but also as a major political theorist, showing how her thinking about global capitalism, state militarism, and other subjects can still be applied today, with powerful effects. By establishing a rich and distinctive account of Luxemburg, Nixon makes a compelling argument for the continuing relevance of her struggle for democratic renewal.