Ian Birchall
Prospects for the left after the French election
The results of the first round of the French presidential election make for grim reading. Ian Birchall looks at some of the lessons of the election, and the future prospects for the left.
Review | Léo Frankel, life of a Communard
Ian Birchall reviews a new French biography of Paris Commune member Léo Frankel.
Cultural Marxism? A review of The Dialectics of Art
Ian Birchall reviews The Dialectics of Art, a new work by John Molyneux.
Review: Anti-Nazi Germans
As Boris Johnson and others attempt to invoke the ‘spirit of the Blitz’ in response to COVID-19, Ian Birchall celebrates a recent publication that disrupts the national myths of WWII.
The total Marx and the total theory of literature
A lost gem of Marxist aesthetic theory, out of print for over forty years.
There’s nothing so weird as a revolution
Ian Birchall reviews China Miéville's October, a new history of the Russian Revolution.
It seems an odd pairing: the Russian Revolution and China Miéville, whose...
Peter Sedgwick and the British Left
Peter Sedgwick (1934-83) was a lifelong socialist activist and writer. Apart from his work to bring Victor Serge to the English speaking world, and his critical writings...
The story of a Bolshevik worker-intellectual: a review of Barbara Allen’s...
Ian Birchall reviews Barbara C Allen's Alexander Shlyapnikov 1885-1937: Life of an Old Bolshevik, published by Haymarket Books.
"Young Alexander conquered India. He alone?"...