Books published by The Merlin Press Ltd

2015 was a year in which the limits of what could be achieved within the European Union's neoliberal architecture and current balance of forces were tested, as never before.

This study presents and probes the political motivations and interests of EP Thompson (1924-1993). Thompson began his political life, as a member of the Communist Party, when the Party was making its greatest electoral impact. After the events in Hungary in 1956 he came into conflict with others in the New Left over issues of theory, orthodoxy an

'Ginge', an NCO in military intelligence, saw too much - and then he saw nothing...

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.

How is the class being transformed in the Global South? How are working people organising in the workplace and in the community? What are the forces shaping and reshaping workers' lives? Four essays focus on change amongst American workers.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was widely believed that Marxists would be all but extinct by the year 2000. Humanity, wrote Francis Fukuyama, had come to the "end of history." All thoughts of finding an alternative to capitalism could be forgotten. Such thinking was wide of the mark.

This book explores some of the main channels and bye-ways in the history of Chartism; it considers: The place of Chartism within the wider framework of Victorian politics The Chartist Land Plan The impact of Canada's 1837-8 rebellions on Chartism Chartism's endurance in Wales beyond the 1839 Rising The role of children in Chartist

In 1946, after a series of stormy strikes and a mass occupation at Ford Motor Company's plant in Dagenham, Essex, thousands of workers came together in a new branch of the Transport and General Workers Union. Later, in the early 1980s, a band of dedicated workplace activists brought branch 1/1107 to explosive life with support for a number working-class causes, from equal opportunities to the stunningly effective boycott of parts for South Africa. "Notoriously Militant," which takes as its title a tabloid journalist's verdict on the branch, covers the history of Ford's Dagenham plant--and its roots in Henry Ford's early U.S. activities--from 20th-century shop-floor struggles to the 21st-century fight against plant closure. Based on original research and oral history, this study offers a primer for activists and analysts on the confrontation between worker militancy and the rigors of "Fordism." This book is a lively look at working-class history as made daily by so-called "ordinary" workers, the links between basic workplace struggles and revolutionary conflict, the pressures toward "cooperation" between union and management, and the interweaving of gender and ethnicity issues with the class-based structures of a major industrial workplace.

A generation ago, they wrote Beyond the Fragments. Inspired by the activism of the 1970s and facing the imminent triumph of the Right under Margaret Thatcher, they sought to apply our experiences as feminists to creating stronger bonds of solidarity in a new kind of Left movement.

First published in 1979, Vida is Marge Piercys classic bookend to the sixties. Vida is full of the pleasures and pains, the experiments, disasters and victories of an extraordinary band of people. At the centre of the novel stands Vida Asch. She has lived underground for almost a decade. Back in the 60s she was a political star of the exuberant ...

The growing polarization between the rich and powerful and the poor and powerless, the yawning social and developmental divide and the multidimensional systemic crisis of capitalism have given rise to a fundamental problem of our times: barbarism or socialism? Will we continue on the path of capitalist barbarism or move to a more just socialist ...

The Greek Marxist political sociologist, Nicos Poulantzas (1936-1979) is one of the most influential of post-war European left thinkers. His works were: Political Power and Social Classes; Fascism and Dictatorship; Classes in Contemporary Capitalism; The Crisis of the Dictatorships, and State, Power, Socialism

The history of the antiapartheid movement brings up images of boycotts and public campaigns in the UK, but another story went on behind the scenes, in secret.

Based on many original documents, this book surveys Iranian political history from 1941 through 1957, focusing on the Tudeh Party: the only substantial left-wing organization in Iran during this period.

Problems and conflicts within and between European states have taken on new and alarming dimensions as economic crisis and neoliberal austerity policies continue to wreck havoc. The longer essays in transform! 2015 draw connections between newly arising national conflicts, crises in social relations and democracy, and the diminishing appeal of Euro

William Morris-the great 19th century craftsman, architect, designer, poet and writer-remains a monumental figure whose influence resonates powerfully today. As an intellectual (and author of the seminal utopian News From Nowhere), his concern with artistic and human values led him to cross what he called the 'river of fire' and become a committed socialist-committed not to some theoretical formula but to the day by day struggle of working women and men in Britain and to the evolution of his ideas about art, about work and about how life should be lived. Many of his ideas accorded none too well with the reforming tendencies dominant in the Labour movement, nor with those of 'orthodox' Marxism, which has looked elsewhere for inspiration. Both sides have been inclined to venerate Morris rather than to pay attention to what he said. Originally written less than a decade before his groundbreaking The Making of the English Working Class, E.P. Thompson brought to this biography his now trademark historical mastery, passion, wit, and essential sympathy. It remains unsurpassed as the definitive work on this remarkable figure, by the major British historian of the 20th century.

This biography rescues from obscurity those in the Irish revolutionary movement who, like Sean McLoughlin, not only envisaged, but fought for, an Ireland very different to the impoverished capitalist neo-colony that would come into being after 1922.

"The book meets the general needs of tourists and business travellers with key paragraphs for every possible situation." "All you need to know about Mauritian Creole in a nutshell." What is Mauritian Creole? A pidgin French which has evolved in Mauritius since the beginning of French rule nearly 300 years ago. Today it is the lingua franca of the country. It has no grammatical or other rules, no verbs to conjugate and no orthography. Non?Mauritians will probably find it the easiest foreign language to learn. The book has been written with these very people in mind and incorporates an English?Creole dictionary. The result is the most comprehensive book available for anyone wishing to learn Mauritian Creole. In this book the first attempt has been made to further simplify the language and make it even easier to learn and speak. Apostrophes and cedillas have been banished, so have unnecessary silent letters; accents have been reduced to just two, and used sparingly. Thus famille is spelt fami, Paques / Pac, cadeau /cado, Francois/ Fransoi and so on. The book gives the origins of many words, explains typical Creole expressions and idioms. It even provides a system of grading to denote the strength of swear words! Unusually for a language book, it also includes a comprehensive guide to Mauritian gastronomy with descriptions of most Creole dishes, as these have contributed the largest number of new words in use today, as can be seen in the chapter on the latest additions to Creole. The book is in two sections. Part One is for tourists who just want a phrase book. Part Two is for those who are interested in Mauritian Creole as a language and includes its history, tracing its origin, and evolution .