As repressive legislation to restrict protest is passed in India and Britain, how can we understand its historical roots and how can this inform activism today?
Sixty years after breaking into a government bunker to expose secret state planning for nuclear conflict, Nic Ralph speaks for the first time about an extraordinary piece of direct action that genuinely worked.
What does 'history from below' looking like in the Philippines? In this piece Justin Umali reflects on communities finding their "historical place" in a narrative.
How did housing activism support the fight against fascism and anti-semitism in the late 1930s? Sarah Glynn investigates a wave of rent strikes in London's East End and beyond
Should Friedrich Engels be reappraised as a radical historian for our times? To mark #Engels200, the bicentenary of Engels' birth, Christian Høgsbjerg assesses the revolution in historiography that he helped to foment.
In October 1945, delegates from across the world gathered in Chorlton-on-Medlock Town Hall, half a mile south of St Peter’s Field, to take part in the Fifth Pan-African Congress.
In July 1840 a convention of twenty-three delegates met at the Griffin Inn, Great Ancoats Street, Manchester. Elected by Chartist bodies from across Britain, their purpose was to put together a plan for reorganising the movement following a…
This is the first in a series of pieces about Radical Friendship. The feature is intended as an exploration of different configurations of friendship, both intimate and symbolic, and the radical potential of these relationships.
First published in 1894 in Justice, Walter Crane’s The Workers’ Maypole declares ‘the cause of labour is the hope of the world’. Powerful yet whimsical, The Workers Maypole brings together English folk tradition and the demands of…
Naman Habtom-Desta argues that while the Soviet Union, like all great powers, sought to enlarge their influence abroad, the narrative in the popular imagination surrounding the global role of the Kremlin is fundamentally flawed.
Commemoration of the Battle of George Square in 1919 has interested diverse groups of researchers, activists and institutions. Respect for tradition meets the desire to create a ‘usable past’ fit for the second decade of the 21st…
As Black films begin to take more spotlight in Hollywood, Owen Walsh examines the historical - and ongoing - connection between Black cinema and radical politics.
How does Scotland remember the hundreds of Scottish volunteers who fought in the Spanish Civil War? The continued existence – even vibrancy – of the commemorative community surrounding Scottish involvement in the Spanish Civil War poses…
Charlotte Lydia Riley, John Callaghan, Michael Walker & Beth Foster-Ogg
As the UK Labour Party charts a new direction under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, activists and historians discuss the Left in government in the latest History Workshop Podcast.
While drawing direct parallels to the modern day might be misleading, present-day Germany’s migration debates shares strong underlying themes with the fall of East Germany. The impact of push and pull factors, as well as the role that…
How can the forgotten archive of Irish-Jewish writer, Leslie Daiken, illuminate the radical networks and transnational solidarity of the Irish Left in the 1930s?
