Vive la Revolution by Mark Steel is a lively and witty history of the French Revolution. It is an accessible history which reclaims the 1789 revolution from the widely held idea that it was a period of terror, murder and mayhem. Steel celebrates the revolution as a time when masses of disenfranchised people played a part in radically changing the society in which they lived.
The film Etre et Avoir (To Be and To Have) should be required watching for all New Labour politicians. It might enlighten those who believe education can be reduced to a barracks regime of testing designed to fit young people for the needs of employers. Etre et Avoir follows in great detail the life of a real school in the French countryside. The school is tiny so there are children from four years old to ten in a single classroom.
THERE HAS been an explosion of ideas and debate in the anti-capitalist and anti-war movements. People are hungry for answers, and words have been poured over the inequality, misery and war created by global capitalism and how to stop it. On the eve of a previous wave of protest, one which saw revolution spread across Europe, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels wrote one of the most famous and influential political pamphlets of all time: The Communist Manifesto.
Radiohead's new album has caused a stir in the music press. Radiohead are immensely popular. Hail To The Thief sold over 60,000 copies in Britain in the first two days of its release. They are also highly political. Lead singer Thom Yorke denounced the war on Iraq. The band support campaigns against Third World debt and in defence of asylum seekers.
THIS YEAR is the hundredth anniversary of the birth of the writer and socialist George Orwell. BBC2 is showing documentary - drama George Orwell: A Life in Pictures this Saturday, which charts both his artistic and political development. The most intriguing question about Orwell is how an Eton schoolboy went on to become perhaps the greatest critic of class privilege and tyranny writing in the English language.
WITH ITS slick cover design, Mark Curtis's book looks like a blockbuster. It deserves to be one. The story of the terrorist actions carried out by the British state is scarier and more gripping than any thriller.
THE GUARDIAN has called its new book on the war against Iraq The War We Could Not Stop. The title reflects the desire of millions of people to stop the war and their anger when the mightiest military power in the world unleashed its devastation on a poor and oppressed people.
To Kill a King is an interesting new film about the English Revolution in the mid 17th century. A revolt, led by parliament, broke out against the tyranny of Charles I's regime in 1642. After years of civil war and attempts to compromise broke down, revolt became a full-blooded revolution.
