LeftWord Books
84 books
The Freedom Theatre is one of the most remarkable institutions in occupied Palestine, and indeed the world. Nestled in Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, the theatre has faced attacks, threats, imprisonment of many functionaries, and the assassination of its co-founder. And yet the theatre has not only endured, it has grown, from a provisional hall with rented plastic chairs to one of Palestine’s most prominent cultural centres. Today, it educates actors, ...
V.I. Lenin’s (1870-1924) role in 1917 captures a unique revolutionary moment. Lenin’s entire corpus of writings in the eight months between the two revolutions offers a concrete lesson on the theory and practice of revolution. Some of the articles and speeches are written with a cool analytical mind, and some are written in feverish haste. Together they provide a unique view of how the revolution unfolded.
Lenin was able to analyse the nature of ...
Mixing thrilling anecdotes from street-level reporting that give readers a sense of what is at stake with a bird's-eye view of the geopolitics of the region and the globe, Vijay Prashad guides us through the dramatic changes in players, politics, and economics in the Middle East over the last five years. “The Arab Spring was defeated neither in the byways of Tahrir Square nor in the souk of Aleppo,” he explains. “It was defeated roundly in the ...
With a Preface by Naresh Fernandes, author of Taj Mahal Foxtrot.
Noise Uprising brings to life the moment and sounds of a cultural revolution. Between the development of electrical recording in 1925 and the outset of the Great Depression in the early 1930s, the sounds cape of modern times unfolded in a series of obscure recording sessions, as hundreds of unknown musicians entered makeshift studios to record the melodies and rhythms of urban streets and ...
Today the left faces new challenges from political forces amassing on the radical right. The 52nd volume of the Socialist Register presents a serious calibration and a careful political mapping of these forces. It addresses pivotal questions on the reordering of the new right. These essays – very broad in terms of themes and places – speak to the global challenges the new right poses for the left at this historical moment.
An event so dramatic, it has inspired two major feature films.
On April 18, 1930, in a small corner of the mighty British Empire, a ragtag bunch of revolutionaries unfurled the Indian flag after raiding the armoury. They were led by a Congress volunteer, Surya Sen, affectionately called Masterda. Nobody, including the revolutionaries, thought the revolt would last more than a few days. They were wrong.
The British Army, despite possessing far superior firepower, ...
"Max Blumenthal audaciously takes in-your-face, on-the-ground journalism into the realm of geopolitics." – Juan Cole, author of The New Arabs and Engaging the Muslim World
Beginning July 8, 2014, Israel launched air strikes and a ground invasion of Gaza that lasted fifty-one days, leaving over 2,000 people dead, the vast majority of whom were civilians. During the assault, at least 10,000 homes were destroyed and, according to the United Nations, ...
Theatre is about representation, about individual bodies, and the way these bodies relate to, reflect, subvert and remake social bodies. Acting Up: Gender and Theatre in India, 1979 Onwards explores these intersections of gender and theatre through an examination of the work of women theatre practitioners. It looks at the conditions that shape these processes: feminist and class politics, caste, ethnicity, faith, and nationalism. This book thinks through a new ...
Over the past twenty years, the Indian political climate has shifted decidedly to the Right – with the BJP and the Congress dragging India into a growth trajectory that squanders the hopes of working people. The old consensus on Indian socialism is threadbare, and socialist parties in disarray.
The future of Indian communism is rooted in the popular hopes for a better tomorrow and in the popular discontent with the bitter present. No Free Left is a critical ...
In 1948, Israel was created on Palestinian land. Palestinians lost their homes and villages; huge numbers were expelled; they became refugees elsewhere or in their own land. In 1967, the West Bank and Gaza were also occupied by Israel. For more than five decades now, Palestinians have suffered the violent and unjust realities of occupation.
Not only does India have strong historical ties with the Arab world; but also the Indian freedom movement saw the struggle ...