Ben Harker – författare

Wide-ranging and richly researched, this is the first sourcebook to reconstruct the tumultuous history of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Drawing together over one hundred and fifty documents—including party statements, press releases, published correspondence, reviews, poems, cartoons and articles—it presents a detailed portrait of the party, its abiding concerns and its many contradictions from the 1920s to the 1980s. It samples voices from the full spectrum of the party’s diverse personnel, from longstanding party leaders (Harry Pollitt, Rajani Palme Dutt), to prominent twentieth-century British intellectuals (E. P. Thompson, Eric Hobsbawm), to significant cultural figures (Jack Lindsay, Alan Bush, A.L. Lloyd). Balanced, comprehensive and framed by Callaghan and Harker’s detailed introductions, British Communism: A documentary history is not only a valuable addition to the historiography of Communism, but to the study of twentieth-century Britain.

Wide-ranging and richly researched, this is the first sourcebook to reconstruct the tumultuous history of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Drawing together over one hundred and fifty documents—including party statements, press releases, published correspondence, reviews, poems, cartoons and articles—it presents a detailed portrait of the party, its abiding concerns and its many contradictions from the 1920s to the 1980s. It samples voices from the full spectrum of the party’s diverse personnel, from longstanding party leaders (Harry Pollitt, Rajani Palme Dutt), to prominent twentieth-century British intellectuals (E. P. Thompson, Eric Hobsbawm), to significant cultural figures (Jack Lindsay, Alan Bush, A.L. Lloyd). Balanced, comprehensive and framed by Callaghan and Harker’s detailed introductions, British Communism: A documentary history is not only a valuable addition to the historiography of Communism, but to the study of twentieth-century Britain.

Sometimes described as ‘the British Brecht’, Ewan MacColl (1915-1989) was a major twentieth-century political artist. This is the first biography of MacColl, and was prepared with the authorisation of his collaborator and widow, Peggy Seeger. MacColl became a communist at fourteen and spent six decades at the cultural forefront of numerous political struggles, producing plays, songs and radio programmes on subjects ranging from the Spanish Civil War to the Poll Tax. Charting his involvement in radical theatre, his ground breaking radio work in the UK and the USA, as well as his musical influences and legacy, his three marriages, and his relationship with his songwriter daughter Kirstie MacColl, this is a lively account of a much-loved icon of 20th century folk music.Drawing on extensive research, Class Act is a freshly conceived and energetically written account of a highly creative and controversial activist.

Based on a decade of research in over twenty archives, The Chronology of Revolution is an accessible and richly detailed work of historical and cultural analysis that fixes its gaze on the legacy of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). Communists anticipated that the party, formed in the world's first industrialized nation, would be in the vanguard of world revolution. Instead, the party never came close to matching the political power of the British Labour Party or continental Communist Parties in France or Italy and dissolved itself in 1991. In this book, Ben Harker draws on the ideas of Antonio Gramsci to argue that the CPGB, despite having great influence over British culture, never fully appreciated the importance of civil society to its political strength. Analysing party members’ efforts in fields such as science, journalism, the arts, broadcasting, and education, The Chronology of Revolution offers an alternative, radical history of Britain between 1920 and 1991 that draws out important lessons for the contemporary Left.