Martin Empson – författare

The modern countryside is the result of centuries of environmental change, but also brutal class struggle. While Wat Tyler's Peasants' Revolt is well known, and Jack Cade and Robert Kett are remembered for their rebellions, there are countless lesser known struggles. Modern agriculture, the food we eat and how it is produced, is a direct result of these historic struggles. Martin Empson's new book rescues these forgotten moments of history and places them in the context of the political and economic changes that have taken place over the last 700 years.

We are in the midst of the greatest environmental crisis humanity has ever seen. Yet despite politicians' rhetoric, repeated warnings from the scientific community and countless international conferences, the situation is getting worse. This book brings together articles from leading socialist and environmental activists who argue that the problem is the capitalist system.

Capitalism has unleashed an environmental crisis it cannot solve. It destroys the planet and simultaneously prevents us addressing the crisis. Environmental protesters around the world are demanding 'system change' because they know that capitalism puts the pursuit of profit before the lives of people and the planet's ecology. The only conclusion can be that capitalism must go and so the struggle for a sustainable world needs revolutionary politics. Building a sustainable future will require the end of capitalism and the creation of a new, socialist, world. In this book, socialist and environmental activist Martin Empson, outlines the sort of politics we need, and argues that revolution is not an abstract concept from history - but an 'actuality' for the 21st century. Indeed revolution is the only hope for humanity's long-term future.

Five hundred years ago, much of Central Europe - centred on what is now Germany was swept by an epic struggle between peasants and lords. Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation had already begun to challenge the authority of the existing Church. This now opened a space for a challenge to the secular authority of the lords and princes. Martin Empson explores this history, the radical forces and ideas that shaped it and why eventually the peasants were defeated.