Book Launch: 1956

Dear All

I’m inviting you to the launch meeting for the new book which John McIlroy and I have edited — 1956: John Saville, EP Thompson and The Reasoner.

It’s on Wednesday, 1 March 2017 at 19.00, at Housman’s Bookshop, 5 Caledonian Road, London N1 9DX.

There is a £3 entry fee, which is redeemable against any purchase.

1956: John Saville, EP Thompson and The Reasoner contains the full text of all three issues of John Saville and EP Thompson’s magazine from 1956, The Reasoner, related Communist Party documents, and an introduction and critical essays by the editors.

More details here < http://www.merlinpress.co.uk/acatalog/1956.html >.

Housman’s events website < http://www.housmans.com/events.php >.

Best wishes

Paul Flewers

Oral History On The North East Labour History Website

The North East Labour History Society is pleased to announce that it has just published transcripts of the personal memories of sixty people from the North East. You can find these on our website at: http://nelh.net/oral-history/

These oral histories are from people who have spent their lives in the co-operative movement, the mines, other industries, the unions and political activity. We think these transcripts are a valuable permanent record of peoples' recollections of their lifetime experiences.

The material we have here draws on a range of activities undertaken by North East Labour History Society members and others. 

Do take a look and tell us what you think. If you have transcripts or notes from interviews with people who have been involved in the labour  movement in the North East we would be delighted to provide space for them on our site (contact@nelh.org). As well as the name of the interviewee and a photograph, it would be helpful to have their dates, where they lived and worked, the name of the interviewer and, if applicable, the project or organisation through which the interview was done. It is important to get permission from the person who has been interviewed to put their information on this site.

David Connolly

Secretary

Glad to be Gay: The struggle for legal equality

The LSE Library has a spring exhibition which runs from 9 January to 7 April: 'Glad to be Gay: the struggle for legal equality'. It draws on the unique Hall-Carpenter Archives and the Women’s Library collection to mark the 50th anniversary of a pivotal piece of legislation: the 1967 Sexual Offences Act. Before that, homosexuality was a criminal offence. With the passing of the Sexual Offences Act, homosexuality in private was decriminalised, but genuine parity still was not achieved. The struggle for legal equality continues and has only made progress by the sustained efforts of committed activists.  See photos from the exhibition here

CfP - Manchester Social Movements conference

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS CONFERENCE  - CALL FOR PAPERS

Dates: Conference 10^th-12 April Abstracts by Monday 2oth March Papers by Friday 31^stMarch

From 1995 to 2016, Manchester Metropolitan University hosted a series of very successful annual international conferences on 'ALTERNATIVE FUTURES and POPULAR PROTEST'.

We're very happy to announce that the Twenty Second AF&PP Conference will be held between Monday 10th and Wednesday 12^th April 2017.

The Conference rubric will remain as in previous years. The aim is to explore the dynamics of popular movements, along with the ideas which animate their activists and supporters and which contribute to shaping their fate.

Reflecting the inherent cross-disciplinary nature of the issues, previous participants (from over 60 countries) have come from such specialisms as sociology, politics, cultural studies, social psychology, economics,  history and geography.  The Manchester conferences have been notable for discovering a fruitful and friendly meeting ground between activism and academia.

CALL FOR PAPERS

We invite offers of papers relevant to the conference themes.  Papers should address such matters as: 

* contemporary and historical social movements and popular protests

* social movement theory

* utopias and experiments

* ideologies of collective action

* etc.

To offer a paper, please contact either of the conference convenors with a brief abstract:  

EITHER Colin Barker,  

email: c.barker@mmu.ac.uk  

OR Mike Tyldesley, Politics Section, HPP,  

Manchester Metropolitan University  

Geoffrey Manton Building, Rosamond Street West  

Manchester M15 6LL, England  

Tel: M. Tyldesley  0161 247 3460   

email: m.tyldesley@mmu.ac.uk  

Fax: 0161 247 6769 (+44 161 247 6769)  

Marx, Lenin and Anarchism: Revolution in Fitzrovia

 Footprints of London - Revolutionary London

London was the destination for communists and anarchists to meet and argue over the form that the coming revolution would take. German anarchists had lived in London since 1848 and came to police attention after assassination attempts on the Tsar of Russia. Lenin knew London well, and the final split between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks took place here in November 1903, with tragic consequences for the Russian Revolution in 1917. The communists had fled police spies in Brussels to meet in Charlotte St in the guise of an anglers club.

Successive waves of exiles from France, Germany and Russia made a home in Fitzrovia, close to the British Museum where Marx and Lenin studied, yet in an area where foreigners ran the bookstores and shops. On this walk we will find the streets where the leading Communard Louise Michel lived and established a pioneering Fitrovia school, and revisit the site of the Autonomie anarchist club, linked by police to the Greenwich bomb of 1894 which inspired Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent.

Sun 26 February 2017
14:00 – 16:00 GMT

Goodge Street Station
72 Tottenham Court Road
London
W1T 2HE

To book tickets (£9-£12) - go to here

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/marx-lenin-and-anarchismrevolution-in-fitzrovia-tickets-31478388708

Book launch - October 1917 - workers in power

October 1917

​ - ​

​
workers in power
Book launch with Paul Le Blanc

​

​Hosted by Resistance Books​

​

Friday 24 February, 7pm
Housmans Bookshop, 5 Caledonian Rd, N1 9DY
Drinks and snacks provided

Paul Le Blanc is Professor of History at La Roche College (USA) and author of works on the labour and socialist movements, including Lenin and the Revolutionary Party, From Marx to Gramsci, and Leon Trotsky.  An editor of the eight-volume International Encyclopaedia of Revolution and Protest, he is currently helping to oversee the Verso Books edition of The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg.

​---------------------------------------------​

October 1917 – workers in power
Published by Merlin Press, Resistance Books

and the IIRE

​.

Available from www.resistancebooks.org
RRP £15.95; Publication: November 2016
Paperback; 234x156mm; 258pp;

​---------------------------------------------​

What they say about the book

‘This collection, containing both texts by participants and retrospective historical analyses, defends the achievements of the Revolution while honestly recognizing its limitations, and will stimulate informed discussion.’
Ian Birchall, socialist historian.

‘This is an important collection celebrating the legacy of the Russian Revolution in its centenary year.  Paul Le Blanc’s Introduction provides rich historical context for past events.  But the book is really about the future.‘
Tithi Bhattacharya, Professor of History, Purdue University; editorial board member, International Socialist Review.

‘A fascinating and unexpected collection of material that shines a needed light on the workers revolution of 1917. All in all, a spirited defence of the October revolution at a time when many people would like to forget all about it.’
Lars Lih, author of Lenin Rediscovered: What is to be Done? in Context, Haymarket 2008.

LSHG Newsletter #60 (Spring 2017) online

The latest Newsletter #60 (Spring 2017) of the LSHG is now online - with comment pieces by Merilyn Moos on Refugees: Then and Now, and Keith Flett on historians and the world of post-truth, Raphael Samuel and Daniel Rachel's new book Walls Come Tumbling Down - our upcoming Spring term seminars are below:

LSHG SEMINARS

Spring 2017

All seminars take place in Room 304 (third floor) at 5.30pm in the Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU and entry is free although donations are welcome.

                                                      

                                                 Monday 16 January

John Lindsay

Alan Turing’s Apple. Towards a history of ‘data science’ 

Monday 30 January

Geoffrey Bell

Hesitant Comrades: The Irish Revolution & the British Labour Movement

Monday 13 February

Daniel Rachel

Walls Come Tumbling Down: From Rock Against Racism to Red Wedge

Monday 27 February

Mike Haynes

The Peculiar Career of Colonel John Ward MP

From the SDF and General Unionism to the Russian Counter-Revolution

 Monday 13 March

Ian Birchall

Lenin’s Moscow by Alfred Rosmer

The Newsletter

Letters, articles, criticisms and contributions to debate are most welcome.

Deadline for the next issue is 1 April 2017.

London Socialist Historians Group

We receive no official funding and rely entirely on supporters for money for our activities. To become a member of the LSHG, send £10. (Cheque payable to ‘Keith Flett’)

Email: keith1917@btinternet.com (and for address for posting cheque)

Web: londonsocialisthistorians.blogspot.co.uk

@LSHGofficial