Much of the material broadcast or written to mark the 30th anniversary of the miners’ strike has portrayed their struggle as a brave but tragic attempt to save a dying industry.

No matter how sympathetically the miners, their families and their supporters are portrayed, that view of their battle against Thatcher’s government onslaught does a massive disservice to the momentous struggle they conducted.

It is absolutely vital for the struggles of future generations of trade unionists and socialist militants that a balance sheet of the strike is drawn. Millions of ordinary working-class people, the miners and their families carried out heroic endeavors during the strike. This book shows the miners were right to take the action they did. They could have won a victory which would have raised the sights and confidence of the whole working-class movement.

Emissions of greenhouse gases that cause climate change have escalated to critical levels. They threaten catastrophe, even endangering life on the planet in the long term. Pete Dickenson indicts the representatives of the capitalist market system. He argues that their failure to address the danger is linked to deepening antagonisms between the major industrial powers. The book explains how and why capitalism has failed to tackle global warming and other threats to the environment, including nuclear contamination. The alternative of a democratically managed socialist planned economy is proposed. This could create the conditions where environmental problems are solved. How such an alternative social system would work is critically examined.

Radical Greens will find the book of huge interest, as will Labour Movement activists, socialists and young people concerned with environmental questions. The book will also be very useful for environmental studies students. particularly those interested in political economy.

See review in the Socialist 749

The great French revolution signalled the end of feudalism in France and laid the basis for modern capitalist society. Yet today the historians of the ruling class try to deny their own heritage. They are petrified of new revolutionary upheavals - this time led by the powerful working class towards the overthrow of capitalism.

The true history of the revolution is still rich for the working class today: on the heroic will of the sans-cullotes to do away with the old order, on the ebbs and the flows of the revolutionary process, on the development of Bonapartism - the forerunner of modern military dictatorships and on the revolutionary tasks in societies where elements of feudalism remain.

This book, first published in 1989, above all unearths the true history of the struggle of the oppressed and draws out vital lessons for the class struggle today.

Read the review 'The Masses Arise: The French revolution and today's struggles' in the Socialist 583

May 2006 marked the eighteeth anniversary of the 1926 General Strike in Britain - the most important and earth-shattering moment in the history of the British working class. To commemorate it and, more importantly, to draw out the lessons from this movement, Peter Taaffe has written this book outlining the course of the nine days that shook British capitalism to its foundations.

It is more than a narrative and chronology of the events themselves, although this will be important for those newer to the movement. Following the public-sector workers' strike during March 2006, the biggest strike of the British working class since 1926, it discusses the use of the demand for a general strike. But it particularly deals with the revolutionary possibilities of the General Strike and the question of whether the fledgling Communist Party of Great Britain had the right strategy, programme and tactics to take full advantageof the strike and the period.

See interview with the author '1926 General Strike: 9 Days That Shook Britain' in the Socialist 438

• What consequences will the economic crisis and its aftermath have for women?
• Will the important changes that have already taken place withstand the effects of this dramatic new period?
• Or will the film of history begin to unwind?
• Are inequality, discrimination and oppression inevitable part of our lives?

Christine Thomas was the Socialist Party's national women's organiser from 1994 to 2006. She has written extensively on the question of women's oppression for the Socialist newspaper and the Socialist Party's theoretical magazine Socialism Today.

Read an interview with the author 'Women and the struggle against oppression' in the Socialist 638.

"The Vietnam War was the longest conflict of the twentieth century – unfolding over 30 years, 10,000 days in length. This war left an indelible impression worldwide in the minds of the generation who lived through these tumultuous events. It helped to form the ‘1960s generation’ of young people who participated in and sometimes led mass movements and demonstrations against the established order of world capitalism. It was a powerful factor in the revolt of the student youth, who sympathised with the Vietnamese masses and their tenacious resistance to US imperialism...

"The implacability of the Vietnamese, their refusal to bow to the military might of the US, lit a fire under the US ruling class in the form of a mass antiwar movement which compelled it to withdraw from Vietnam."

- From the introduction

See interview with the author in the Socialist 324

"Using the method of contrasts, we compare their ideas and ours on how best to take the left forward. But our arguments are not directed solely at the SWP and its supporters in the British and international labour movement. There are also organisations and groupings which have a similar approach. This book is a critique of what we believe are wrong methods in general, which in the crucial task of forging a new Marxist force can be a barrier to building a new mass workers' left party in Britain. Our task above all is to seek to educate the new generation of workers and young people who will be moved into action by the great events that impend in Britain and worldwide. Many will investigate the credentials - including the history of all organisations - before engaging with them. A serious examination - which we aim for here - would show that the SWP in its fundamental ideas, its approach and, above all, its method has been found wanting. Unless they change, they can still have a negative effect in the battles to come."

- From the preface

See the review in the Socialist 560