BACK TO THE FUTURE:
LAUNCHING THE LEFT BOOK CLUB
November 17th
Conway Hall
25 Red Lion Square
London, WC1R 4RL
7.00pm
With: Ken Livingstone, Kevin Ovenden, Natalie Bennett, Kate
Osamor MP and others
Suggested donations, £5, concessions £3
The original Left Book Club was founded in 1936 as a means
of promoting radical debate in Britain. It swiftly became a phenomenon,
distributing over 2 million books and forming 1,200 reading and discussion
groups across the country. It engaged in political activity, including
solidarity work (e.g. with Spain), political agitation and much else. The LBC
is considered a factor in the creation of the Welfare State and in Labour’s
landslide election victory of 1945. It closed in 1948.
Today we face a similar crisis to that of the 1930s, with
capitalism breeding inequality, suffering and violence around the world. As
then, however, the global left remains mobilised and committed to the creation
of a fairer society, free of the repression and austerity that has defined the
modern era.
The re-launch of the Left Book Club will help us rise to the
challenge posed by the global crisis. The LBC will publish four books a year
covering a range of progressive traditions, perspectives and ideas focused on
the UK, Europe and the rest of the world.
Our aim is for these books to form the basis of a wide
network of reading circles, discussion groups and other educational and cultural
activities relevant to constructing the conditions for progressive social
change in the interests of working people.
Jeremy Corbyn:
The relaunch of the
Left Book Club is a terrific and timely idea, and will give intellectual
ballast to the wave of political change sweeping Britain and beyond,
encouraging informed and compassionate debate.
The work will open
minds and inspire. I have a large collection of Left Book Club publications
collected by my parents and me.
I support the LBC
wholeheartedly.
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