Books published by The Merlin Press Ltd

Clash is set against the backdrop of the 1926 general strike. It describes political and personal issues as Joan Craig, an activist in the trade union movement and Labour Party, lives through the excitement of mass protest and individual turmoil in her relations with two men friends.

Millions of people across the globe face a precarious existence because of Covid-19, climate change, and the greatest wealth inequality in a century. In Britain, the pandemic has revealed critical failings in the social safety net, especially the damage to the National Health Service caused by years of underfunding and creeping privatisation.

Margaret Llewelyn Davies (1861-1944), a co-operator, feminist and socialist, was well known in her time as the outstanding leader of the Women's Co-operative Guild. This first full scale biography chronicles her life and achievements, intertwining activity among working class women with her personal story.

Climate change is a product of the entire social and economic system within which we exist, in a word, capitalism.

Transform! 2020 explores the future of Europe in the emerging multipolar world. What is the impact of the global crisis of hegemony? What is at stake for democracy and labour and what opportunities are opening up for political and social subjects in the era of digital capitalism? Can art and history still provide some answers?

This book addresses the challenges facing socialists and the recent shift from protest to politics. It examines the limits and possibilities for class, party and state transformation and the democratic and socialist insurgencies inside the Labour Party in Britain, and the Democratic Party in the USA.

Much loved in his own era, William Morris has inspired Prime Ministers (Clement Attlee), artists and eco-socialists (John Bellamy Foster).

Paul grew up in the 1930s South Africa. He awoke to political activism as an Indian in the racially segregated schools and slums of Johannesburg, and aged just 15, committed himself to fight oppression. He participated in ANC political campaigns from the passive resistance of the 1940s - inspired by Gandhi - through to the armed struggle

Hugo Blanc is Peru's best-known revolutionary. A leader of the indigenous people of the Andes, he was born in 1934 in Cusco, the former Inca capital. He is a lifelong environmental campaigner in defence of the natural riches of the Andean region and beyond.

George Julian Harney was one of the half-dozen most important leaders of Chartism. This selection from the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle is the first book to reprint any of his journalism. Harney is a key figure in the history of English radicalism.

This book focuses on the men of the convict transport Eleanor who arrived in NSW in 1831. They were all from the counties of Berkshire, Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire and were transported for their part in the Swing riots - the great agricultural uprising of 1830-31. This episode which touched thirty counties and has been called 'the last peasants' revolt' led to more than 480 people being sent to Australia ('the largest single group in the history of transportation' (George Rude). The men on the Eleanor who made up 30% of the Swing transportees. Part I of the book deals with the men of the Eleanor in their English setting, Part II with their experiences as convicts and free men in New South Wales. The chapter headings below give a clear indication of the contents of each chapter and the focus of the book on ruined and then reconstructed lives Written with full academic apparatus but with that elusive being the general reader in mind, this theme will appeal to that large readership in England which is interested in rural social history and popular protest.In Australia there is a large and enthusiatic readership for books on colonial history, convictism and works which provide a context for family history. This book also has the advantage of being focussed on Hardy's Wessex and is thus, to some extent, a contribution to the regional history of southern England. The Swing Riots are a topic which features in the history syllabuses of most examination boards in southern England.