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Who Buries Whom?

“Six months ago, the Spectator prematurely ran an obituary of New Left Review. . . . Fittingly, the Spectator’s recent metamorphosis, after a period of declining sales, has seen the funeral of its distinctive brand of fellow-travelling Conservatism, petty-radical demagogy, and Cold War cultural klatsch. The times have . . .” read more

Origins of the Present Crisis

“Two commanding facts confront socialists in Britain today, dominating this moment of our history. British society is in the throes of a profound, pervasive but cryptic crisis, undramatic in appearance, but ubiquitous in its reverberations. As its immediate result, a Labour government seems imminent. So much everyone agrees. . . .” read more

'A History of Latin America'; 'Latin American Politics in Perspective'

“A History of Latin America. George Pendle. Pelican Books, 4s.” read more

Three Currents in Communism

“Hegel says somewhere that any party is real only when it becomes divided. The idea, far from being a paradox, is simple and profound in its dialectical realism. Any political movement (or any philosophical school of thought) as it grows and develops cannot help unfolding the contradictions inherent . . .” read more

Guyana

“‘100 Years Under British Rule rather than one year under Jagan’, a slogan waved aloft by the Opposition to the People’s Progressive Party in British Guiana, gives a keyhole look at what is behind the conflict in the small South American Colony seeking independence. The United Force, representing . . .” read more

The British Political Elite

“Class-divided societies have almost always been governed politically by a small minority. In general, this chosen few is a small group even in relation to the ‘ruling class’ itself, in the Marxist sense, the class which possesses or controls the economic wealth of society through the institutions of . . .” read more

Imperialist 'Anti-Imperialism'

“Paul Johnson’s article in The New Statesman of December 13th threatens to destroy, with a torrent of unemotional logic, the illusions that we cherish: illusions about ‘peace’, about ‘socialism’ and about ‘imperialism’. Let us look at the ‘realities’ of ‘imperialism’ with Johnson. He illuminates us twice. First, about . . .” read more

Planning or Prediction?

“Peter Hall’s book, London 2000, is a useful corrective to a good deal of loose thinking about “planning”, if only because it states, with great gusto and conviction, a point of view that sharply contradicts theories that have been accepted uncritically for many years. If Peter Hall has . . .” read more

Bingo or UNO?

“Further Comments on the Affluent and Proletarian Nations” read more

The Dialectic of Class and Region in Belgium

“Belgian society today is a living illustration of the law of uneven development which has dominated the whole history of capitalism. The present structural crisis of the Belgian economy is a direct consequence of the fact that Belgium was the first industrialized country in continental Europe. The crisis . . .” read more

Third World or Third Force?

“Michael Barratt Brown comments on Keith Buchanan’s article “The Third World—its emergence and contours”.” read more

What is Fascism?

“The first volume of what promises to be by far the most rigorous and methodologically exciting analysis of Italian Fascism yet to have appeared has recently come out in France: Robert Paris’ Histoire du Fascisme en Italie. Showing complete familiarity with the mass of published material on the . . .” read more

Crosland’s Enemy--A Reply

“It is the central proposition of the revisionist, or Croslandite, left (I refuse to call it the ‘radical’ left) that capitalism can now be managed without further major steps towards social ownerprivate industry is today largely controlled by technical managers who have other interests and motives than maximising . . .” read more

On Internationalism

“Socialism was born into a world whose limits were those of capitalism itself. North-Western Europe, with its American extension, was the sole, sovereign source of history; the rest of the world simply the arena of its annexations. Inevitably, socialist thought itself was influenced by this unique supremacy: the . . .” read more

The Third World

“—Its Emergence and Contours” read more

Romanticism in Politics

“For sheer literary dexterity and the apt Latin catchphrase Professor Oakeshott’s Rationalism in Politics is the most civilised book I have read for a long time. But it is also a serious attempt to defend the deeper values of civilisation itself against reforming theorists and politicians with no . . .” read more

Portugal and the End of Ultra-Colonialism (Part 3)

“Mass forced labour: de facto pass laws: omnipresent foreign capital: an incendiary white lumpenproletariat: a superstructure of magic: an economic and social machine turning in a void, driven by pure terror. This was the system of Portuguese imperialism at the opening of 1961, the most primitive, the most . . .” read more

Crowds and Critics

“This book—which may be said to have the clarity, simplicity, and explanatory flexibility of a metaphysical system—is an erudite and fascinating work of immense distinction. In it, the fruits of human action en bloc have been wisely tabled and formulated. Original and massively documented, it provides us with . . .” read more

Portugal and the End of Ultra-Colonialism (Part 2)

“A preliminary remark on method should be made. The account which follows does not attempt to give an exhaustive description of the whole Portuguese colonial system. The method chosen is rather to select various key sectors which appear to be privileged expressions of the whole, and to show . . .” read more

Phrenology of Britain

“Anatomy of Britain; Anthony Sampson; Hodder and Stoughton 35s.” read more

Preface to Machiavelli

“The inclusion of the works of Niccolo Machiavelli in the series of volumes published by ‘Academia’ needs no justification. The episodes which inspired Machiavelli’s works, the works themselves (propagandist, historical, fictional), the bitter disputes which raged around his name for centuries afterwards—all these are major events in the . . .” read more

Shifting the Mule

“Nicolas Walter’s article Damned Fools in Utopia, in the last New Left Review, compels both respect and irritation in the highest degree, which was no doubt its purpose. What I admire about it (as well as its wit and candour) is the recognition that men of goodwill may . . .” read more

Portugal and the End of Ultra-Colonialism- Part I

“It is now clear that the Portuguese Empire is coming to an end. In its final days, it may be timely to examine the history and structure of this empire, both for their own interest and for the importance they have for any general account of imperialism. Good . . .” read more

Damned Fools in Utopia

“Advocates of unilateral nuclear disarmament labour under two contradictory but complementary disadvantages—what they want is almost unattainable, and what they fear is almost unimaginable.” read more

A Case of Privilege

“the wedgwood benn case excited considerable attention when it was first heard, but now it is already being forgotten. For this fading, the Conservative Central Office can take the credit, for it has directed the whole operation, since the death of Wedgwood Benn’s father, last November. At . . .” read more

Signpost of the Pause

“” read more

The Politics of the Common Market

“with the Common Market, we have arrived at a real turning point in post-war history. It is always difficult to date such moments precisely, but it can now be clearly seen that the signing of the Treaty of Rome in 1957, gathering up as it did the . . .” read more

Change and Unchange

“i knew next-to-nothing about Mass-Observation before reading this book, simply placing it, with certain big-band, whispering hotel trumpet tunes, as part of the stock marginalia of the thirties, lingering in my mind as one of those exercises in journalistic, impressionistic sociology to “present the people to the . . .” read more

Sweden: Study in Social Democracy (Part 2)

“the swedish class structure has revealed itself as at once idiosyncratic and typical. Income distribution is vastly more even that in other western countries, but social mobility is fully as sluggish, and the lived distances between classes probably as great. On the other hand, violent hostility between . . .” read more

Editorial on CND

“Perhaps the only lesson to be learned from four years of campaigning for Nuclear Disarmament is that there is no simple way in which a political campaign can calculate its effect upon people and Governments. It eludes all the fixed categories of "politics". From the Central Hall meeting . . .” read more

Direct Action--A Discussion with Alan Lovell

“Paddy Whannel and Stuart Hall put questions about direct action and civil disobedience to Alan Lovell, a member of the Committee of a Hundred. The questions are in italics throughout.” read more

Theoretical Dead-End

“The End of Ideology, by Daniel Bell:” read more

Sweden: Mr.Crosland’s Dreamland (Part 1)

“The first part of a study of the Swedish Model by Perry Anderson” read more

Intellectual Liberalism?

“there’s little in Thompson’s “Revolution Again” (NLR 6) with which one can disagree in substance. That the working class or class consciousness are not concrete slabs hoisted into Shapes by History, but subtle things that owe some, at least, of their existence to our own efforts, must . . .” read more

Liquidating the Thirties

“History of Socialist Thought, Vol. 5:” read more

Revolution Again!

““Under which King’ Besonian?”” read more

Comment on 'Revolution' by E.P.Thompson

““groups have never thirsted after truth,” said Freud. “They demand illusions, and cannot do without them. They constantly give what is unreal precedence over what is real.” If Labour’s electoral losses are seen as the sharp death of an illusion that had gripped a decade—an illusion that . . .” read more

Socialism and Affluence

“As traditionally, and—I think—correctly understood, the purpose of socialism may be defined as follows:” read more

Comment on 'Revolution' by E.P.Thompson

“in the past, the apparent basic division in the socialist movement was between those who accepted the evolutionary path, and those who advocated revolution, usually associated with a measure of violence. I use the word apparent, because, beneath the surface, the two concepts of a socialist society . . .” read more

Comment on 'Revolution' by E.P. Thompson

“the notion that socialism will come along, without putting anyone unduly out of joint, as simply an inevitable series of links in the evolutionary chain, is about as useful as a torn cartilage. The day of piece-meal reformism, considered as a total philosophy designed to bring about . . .” read more

Letter to the New Left

“when i settle down to write to you, I feel somehow “freer” than usual. The reason, I suppose, is that most of the time I am writing for people whose ambiguities and values I imagine to be rather different from mine; but with you, I feel enough . . .” read more

Forward from Marxism

“it would, I think, be a pity if Edward Thompson’s discussion of the possibility of social revolution were to be taken as the authentic voice of the New Left—as right-wing critics of Out of Apathy already seem to be doing. In attempting to avoid the danger of . . .” read more

Summer Manoeuvres

“last month’s aphorism was that when the Government’s Defence policy collapsed, it was the Opposition which was thrown into confusion. This is not as funny or as paradoxical as it sounds. From the rearmament of West Germany through to “Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent”, official Labour Party orthodoxy . . .” read more

Changes of Quality

“Comments On Revolution In NLR 3 we published the final Chapter from Out of Apathy, E. P. Thompson’s “Revolution”. This article discussed the new antagonisms bred by capitalism, and suggested that Britain was “overripe” for socialism: it also raised the question of the “transition to socialism” and the . . .” read more

Countermarching to Armageddon

“long before the custard-pies started to fly around at the Summit, the preparations for the Countermarch were well in hand. The 100,000 Easter demonstrators had scarcely drifted away from Trafalgar Square before the Top People’s CND (Committee for Natopolitan Defence) was in session, getting everything ready for . . .” read more

Apathy: A Case to Answer

“i read “Revolution” three or four times, trying to make out the serious ‘immediate policy’ advertised on the back cover of the New Left Review. But what remains in my mind is less a policy than a political allegory, a Pilgrim’s Progress through the 1960’s. The hero . . .” read more

Apathy into Politics

“in “revolution”, Edward Thompson wrote, “that the point of breakthrough is not a narrow political concept; it will entail a confrontation throughout society between two systems, two ways of life. In this confrontation, political consciousness will become heightened. . .” This is one of the most important . . .” read more

Magic of Monarchy

“flanked on one side by the Central Purchasing Department of I.C.I. and on another by the Imperial Headquarters of the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides Association, Buckingham Palace stands—bulwark of an outgoing empire, fulcrum of the still feverishly rotating wheel of British privilege and power.” read more

The Glittering Coffin

“by Dennis Potter: Gollancz, 18s.” read more

Religion of the Celebrity

“the adulation of the monarchy is a fairly recent phenomenon. In 1830, at the death of George IV The Times wrote; “There never was an individual less regretted by his fellow creatures”. Queen Victoria was never as unpopular as that, but as the powers of the . . .” read more