A review of Revolution: Russian Art 1917–1932 Royal Academy of Arts, Piccadilly, London, 11 February-17 April 2017 Little is more contested in art history than works from revolutionary Russia. The latest show from the Royal Academy (RA) and most of… Continue Reading
This is the story of how a bar-room shooting involving one “Stag” Lee Shelton became one of the most prominent narratives of 20th century popular culture in America: William Lyons, 25, colored, a levee hand, living at 1410 Morgan Street,… Continue Reading
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels both took a great interest in early human history and prehistory, and it was Marx’s notes on Lewis Henry Morgan’s Ancient Society that prompted Engels to produce The Origin of the Family, Private Property and… Continue Reading
Gerrard Winstanley was 40 years old when Charles I was executed.1 Had he been born 20 years before, or after, history would likely have been robbed of one of its most inspiring visionaries. Winstanley was the ideological driving force behind… Continue Reading
A review of Erik Olin Wright, Understanding Class (Verso, 2015), £14.99 Erik Olin Wright has been worrying about class for 40 years. Much of his conceptual thinking and rethinking came about as a result of the empirical investigation Wright led… Continue Reading
Art has often judged the judges, pleaded revenge to the innocent and shown to the future what the past has suffered, so that it has never been forgotten. John Berger, 1985.1 In 1969 Kenneth Clark presented a 13-part television series… Continue Reading
I shall never forget that thunder-like speech, which startled and amazed not only me, a heretic who had accidently dropped in, but all the true believers. I am certain that no one had expected anything of the sort. It seemed… Continue Reading
Within weeks of Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader, news and media channels were dominated by charges of antisemitism levelled against his supporters, the National Union of Students and others for their opposition to the State of Israel. The furore… Continue Reading
The commission was chaired by Bob Geldof and headed by prime minister Tony Blair, chancellor of the exchequer Gordon Brown, and minister for international development Hilary Benn. It also included: Michel Camdessus, who as managing director of the IMF until… Continue Reading
Towards the end of the 1980s and early 1990s strikes, riots and demonstrations forced 19 one-party states in Africa to institutionalise a democratic opposition. But the headlong rush into neo-liberalism and continued structural adjustment policies somewhat de-֊legitimised the ‘birth of… Continue Reading