Radical Books

Radical Reads 2024

Administrator 12 December 202412 December 2024

As 2024 draws to a close, the History Workshop editors choose a new selection of Radical Reads - all of which have inspired, emboldened and comforted us during another tumultuous year.

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Radical Books: Dale Spender, There’s Always Been a Women’s Movement This Century (1983)

Sharon Crozier-De Rosa 8 February 20248 February 2024

Following the passing of feminist academic Dale Spender (1943-2023), Sharon Crozier-De Rosa reflects on the enduring vision of Spender's feminism.

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Radical Reads 2023

Administrator 12 December 202311 December 2024

As a new year approaches, History Workshop editors choose the 'reads' that have provoked thought and left a mark on them in 2023.

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An Empire of Readers

Lucy Moynihan 8 February 20237 February 2023

How was the eighteenth-century pursuit of knowledge intertwined with enslavement and empire? Lucy Moynihan on the history of literary institutions in the British colonial world.

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Radical Reads 2022

Administrator 14 December 202220 January 2023

As the new year approaches, History Workshop editors choose their radical ‘reads’ of the year.

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Radical Books: The Napier Report

Andy Drummond 13 April 202229 October 2022

How might a verbose Victorian Parliamentary Report provide a source of radical rural Scottish history? Andy Drummond explores the unlikely story of the 1884 Napier Report.

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Radical Reads 2021

Marybeth Hamilton 16 December 202121 January 2023

At the end of another extraordinary year, History Workshop editors choose their favourite radical reads of 2021.

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Radical Books: Closing the Asylum

Barbara Taylor 31 March 202120 December 2022

Despite emancipationist rhetoric, asylum abolition was a cost-cutting exercise that has left us with a coercive and carceral system of care. Barbara Taylor on the new edition of Peter Barham's 'Closing the Asylum'.

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Radical Reads 2020

Administrator 16 December 202020 January 2023

History Workshop editors select their end-of-year radical reads for 2020.

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Radical Books: What is the Sound of Revolution?

Rosa Campbell & Taushif Kara 5 November 202020 January 2023

A new book on Kate Millett's 1979 trip to Iran raises questions about voices unheard or marginalized in the writing of history. Rosa Campbell and Taushif Kara explore.

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Strike Syllabus

Peter Jones & Rachel Moss 4 March 202012 January 2023

History Workshop's crowd-sourced Strike Syllabus offers texts to inspire and galvanise, to stir righteous anger or provide necessary solace.

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Radical Reads for the End of the Year

Administrator 16 December 201921 January 2023

For many of us in the UK, the recent election has turned this festive season into a bleak midwinter. What better time, then, to curl up with a good book: not to escape, but to explore new paths of resistance? Members of the History…

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History Workshop’s Summer Reads

Rachel Moss 20 August 201921 January 2023

We asked History Workshop journal and online editors what books they have particularly enjoyed over the summer, and share their responses here to give you some inspiration in compiling your own reading lists, whether you have a last-minute…

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Radical Books: August Bebel’s Women and Socialism

Rida Vaquas 14 August 201920 December 2022

“The future belongs to Socialism, that is, primarily, to the worker and to women.” A book titled Women and Socialism […]

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Radical Books: Trans Like Me (2017), CN Lester

Onni Gust 5 June 201921 January 2023

How does CN Lester's 'Trans Like Me' offer radical new perspectives on the integral relationship between feminism and trans rights? Onni Gust investigates as part of HWO's Remembering Stonewall feature.

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History from below: a reading list with Marcus Rediker

Jared Davidson 22 May 201912 January 2023

Jared Davidson introduces Marcus Rediker's carefully curated list of essential readings to develop a history from below.

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History Workshop’s Radical Books of the Year

Administrator 17 December 201813 December 2022

What books most inspired your radical imagination in 2018? History Workshop's editors weigh in with an end-of-year roundup of their favourite reads.

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Remembering 1968: The S.C.U.M. Manifesto for the Society for Cutting up Men

Marybeth Hamilton 18 July 201813 December 2022

Marybeth Hamilton on Valerie Solanas' the SCUM Manifesto for the Society for Cutting up Men.

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The crowd-funded book: an eighteenth-century revival

Norma Clarke 12 June 201831 October 2022

Norma Clarke explores how contemporary models of crowd-funding - allowing authors to by-pass conventional publishers to fund, print and disseminate their books - echo eighteenth-century practices of publishing by subscription, used by…

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Radical Books: Maxim Gorky, ‘Song of the Falcon’ (1894)

Ole Birk Laursen 12 April 20184 January 2023

For the latest post in our Radical Books series, Ole Birk Laursen tracks the influence of Maxim Gorky's anti-Tsarist poem 'Song of the Falcon' on Russian and Indian revolutionaries before the Russian Revolution

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Radical Books: Alexander Radishchev, ‘Journey from St Petersburg to Moscow’ (1790)

Jennifer Keating 2 February 20184 January 2023

The 'most notorious book in Russian history': Jennifer Keating on Alexander Radishchev's radical critique of autocracy, banned by Catherine the Great over a century before the Russian Revolution.

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Radical Books: ‘Brighton Trans*formed’ (2014), E. J. Scott, Maeve Devine et al

Matt Cook 12 January 20184 January 2023

Matt Cook, History Workshop Journal editor and professor of modern history at Birkbeck, on a moving collection of oral histories gathered from people living in the city of Brighton and Hove, who identify in various ways as trans.

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Radical Books: Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (1961)

May Robson 1 December 201710 January 2023

The Wretched of the Earth was the final work of Frantz Fanon, a fearless critic of colonialism and a key figure in Algeria’s struggle for independence. This new history of the 'Third World' depicted the unresolved and open-ended nature of…

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Self-publish and be Damned: A call for Radical Publishing Alternatives

Lesley Hulonce 15 September 201612 January 2023

Lesley Hulonce advocates a revolution in academic publishing, including radical alternatives like self publishing.

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The Brexit Syllabus: British History for Brexiteers

Onni Gust 5 September 201612 January 2023

What would a British history syllabus for Brexiteers look like?

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Review of This Orient Isle: Elizabethan England and the Islamic World

Julia McClure 21 June 20163 January 2023

Julia McClure reviews Jerry Brotton's new book This Orient Isle, Elizabethan England and the Islamic World showing how connections between Elizabethan England and the Islamic world were inscribed in English cultures and fashions.

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Review: ‘The Pity of Partition’

Andrew Whitehead 15 September 201320 December 2022

Ayesha Jalal's The Pity of Partition: Manto’s Life, Times, and Work across the India-Pakistan Divide, reviewed by Andrew Whitehead.

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Review: The Last Hunters

Mary Chamberlain 18 July 201219 January 2023

A review of The Last Hunters: The Crab Fishermen of Cromer, an account of the Norfolk crab fishing industry

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Review: Australian Aboriginal Protest in Interwar Europe

Fiona Paisley 15 July 201219 January 2023

A short review of the life of A.M. Fernando, the first an Aboriginal Australian activist to present the Aboriginal cause directly to the European public in the 1920's

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Review: Resist Much, Obey Little

Ross Bradshaw 27 June 201219 January 2023

A review, written by Ross Bradshaw, of the special issue of The Spokesman, comprising of a set of essays on aspects of Ken Coates’ life, who was editor of the journal for forty years

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Radical Books

What

Where

When

Series

Radical Reads 2024

Radical Books: Dale Spender, There’s Always Been a Women’s Movement This Century (1983)

Radical Reads 2023

An Empire of Readers

Radical Reads 2022

Radical Books: The Napier Report

Radical Reads 2021

Radical Books: Closing the Asylum

Radical Reads 2020

Radical Books: What is the Sound of Revolution?

Strike Syllabus

Radical Reads for the End of the Year

History Workshop’s Summer Reads

Radical Books: August Bebel’s Women and Socialism

Radical Books: Trans Like Me (2017), CN Lester

History from below: a reading list with Marcus Rediker

History Workshop’s Radical Books of the Year

Remembering 1968: The S.C.U.M. Manifesto for the Society for Cutting up Men

The crowd-funded book: an eighteenth-century revival

Radical Books: Maxim Gorky, ‘Song of the Falcon’ (1894)

Radical Books: Alexander Radishchev, ‘Journey from St Petersburg to Moscow’ (1790)

Radical Books: ‘Brighton Trans*formed’ (2014), E. J. Scott, Maeve Devine et al

Radical Books: Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (1961)

Self-publish and be Damned: A call for Radical Publishing Alternatives

The Brexit Syllabus: British History for Brexiteers

Review of This Orient Isle: Elizabethan England and the Islamic World

Review: ‘The Pity of Partition’

Review: The Last Hunters

Review: Australian Aboriginal Protest in Interwar Europe

Review: Resist Much, Obey Little