Bøger udgivet af Pluto Press (UK)

Can a soccer match trigger a war? Can soccer push back against the tyranny of dictatorship or usher one into power? Kicking Off Around the World shares some incredible stories in which football clubs have been a mirror to--and a maker of--world history. Ramon Usall shows that almost no contemporary historical episode is not reflected in the trajectory of a soccer club somewhere. Taking the reader on a whistle-stop tour of the events that have defined the last century, we encounter anti-colonial rebellions, class conflict, Nazism, communism, national liberation struggles, and sectarian strife. Full of anecdotes, little-known facts, and illustrations, Kicking Off Around the World mixes the grassroots with the greatest of all time: the unknown and the unforgettable. It looks at the women's game, soccer during the war in Ukraine, and stories of clubs worldwide: in Britain and the USA, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa.

Preface - Jeremy Corbyn (Peace and Justice Project) Introduction - Andrew Feinstein (Shadow World Investigations), Rhona Michie (Shadow World Investigations and the Corruption Tracker), and Paul Rogers (University of Bradford and openDemocracy) Part I: The Global Arms Trade 1. The Global Arms Trade: How It Works, and How We Might Control It - Anna Stavrianakis (University of Sussex) 2. If you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail: How guns define international relations - Vijay Prashad (Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research) Part II: The Impact of the Arms Trade 3. Militarism and the Climate Emergency - Stuart Parkinson (Scientists for Global Responsibility) 4. The history and current state of Israel's occupation, apartheid and genocide in Palestine, and how this is fuelled and encouraged by the West and the flow of weapons (title and contributor TBC) 5. Chapter on Yemen (title pending) - Ali Myas (Mwatana for Human Rights) 6. Displacement in Northern Uganda: the Horrors of the LRA War - Tabitha Agaba and Ian Katusiime 7. Arms Trade in the Land of Gandhi: The Military Industrial Complex and Its Impact on the World's Largest Democracy, India - Binalakshmi Nepram (Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network) 8. The Market of Death as Seen from Latin America - Ana Penido (Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research) Part III: Global Campaigns Against the Arms Trade 9. Stop the War Coalition: A Mass Movement Against Weapons and War - Lindsey German (Stop the War) 10. Direct Action Against the Arms Trade (title pending) - Palestine Action 11. Youth Campaigns Against the Arms Trade - Carmen Wilson (Demilitarise Education) 12. Lynchpin of the Pacific: Ending the Militarisation of Hawai'i - Kawena'ulaokala Kapahua (Hawaiian Independence movement) 13. Strategic Litigation Against the Global Arms Trade: Countering Irresponsibility under International and Domestic Arms Control Law - Valentina Azarova (de: border // Migration Justice Collective, Emergent Justice Collective, Feminist Autonomous Centre) 14. Worker/trade union strikes against the arms trade (title and contributor TBC) Conclusion - Andrew Feinstein, Rhona Michie and Paul Rogers Glossary

A tribute to the power of self-determined stories. This dynamic collection spotlights the relational and political desires of Indigenous, African, and Afro-Indigenous people to overcome historical genocide, displacement, and disposability in an imperialist culture and nation. Activists, organizers, and academics gather to interrogate capture, care, environmental justice, sovereignty, and resistance. Engage is an invitation to interrogate everything, a toolkit to build a future free from the harmful legacies of colonialism, racism, and genocide.

Advertising is selling us a dream, a lifestyle. It promises us fulfillment and tells us where to buy it - in international flights, beef from (what was once) the Amazon, and a vast array of goods we consume like there was no tomorrow. And if advertising succeeds in keeping us on our current trajectory - there may not be a tomorrow. In Badvertising, Andrew Simms and Leo Murray raise the alarm about an industry that is making us both unhealthy and unhappy and driving the planet to the precipice of environmental collapse. The book explores the psychological impact of being barraged by thousands of advertisements daily. How does the commercialization of our public spaces weaken our sense of belonging? What are the pitfalls of regulation? How are car manufacturers, airlines, and oil companies lobbying to weaken climate action? And most crucially of all, what can we do to stop it?

In a world gripped by endless crises and climate breakdown, the demand to reshape our economic system has never been more urgent. Reclaiming the Future by Simon Hannah is a beginner's guide to planning the economy, taking readers on a transformative journey towards a radically democratic society where the power and control over our lives are firmly in our hands. Decades of right-wing scaremongering have tried to consign economic planning to the dustbin. Still, its need is more significant than ever - it might be the only thing to save us from climate catastrophe. In this myth-busting and accessible guide, Hannah lays the building blocks for a grassroots economy that aligns our economy with human needs and environmental limits.

Much is known about colonial Africa (or what Europeans did in Africa). Yet very little is known about Africa before its colonization. In this surprising history, Max Siollun uncovers a Nigeria not part of a backward 'dark continent' as European historians often attest. Instead, many of its people were highly educated, living in democratic, sophisticated states, had international business and diplomatic relations, and produced world-class art, such as the Benin Bronzes. Siollun also tells the stories of captivating individuals, such as the remarkable Dan Fodio family, who led a 19th-century revolution, overthrew three different 1,000-year-old empires, caused an intellectual reform movement, and wrote over 300 different books and poems between them. This is a vital read for those who want to discover a forgotten era of West African history.

As housing crises proliferate around the world, so does the fightback. A new generation of tenants' unions is rising to demand suitable, affordable housing. From the streets of Los Angeles to the avenues of Berlin, these unions are rewriting the playbook on community empowerment and direct action. In Renters Unite, longtime organizer Jacob Stringer navigates the joys and perils of a new and exciting form of political organizing. Through vivid storytelling and analysis, this book takes readers to the frontlines to expose the brutality of criminal landlords and exploitative housing. It's time to say no to bad landlords and join the movement for housing justice!

To change the world, we need a money revolution. Yet the debate over money has been dominated by two perspectives: those free-market capitalists who want money to rule everything and those who wish the state to harness money's power. Decolonizing Money presents an anarchist theory of money, which sets out strategies for collective liberation beyond state and capital. Drawing on anarchist, abolitionist, and anti-colonial feminist traditions, Julio Linares makes the heretical argument for a grassroots democratic movement to abolish the imperialist US dollar as a necessary step towards canceling debt and a worldwide basic income. Beyond simply a store of value and a medium of exchange, Linares shows us that money is a series of promises a society makes to itself and challenges us to make them otherwise. This innovative book takes lessons from global history and social movements to unleash the political imagination. It shows us how the creation, use, and, most importantly, the destruction of money are forms of power that need to be reclaimed through direct action as part of a radical democratic project for autonomy and self-determination.

In many places worldwide, the freedom to care for one another is under attack by the powerful, and acts of solidarity are being made illegal. In a moment of struggle defined by the rollback of social welfare programs, the criminalization of migration, and the right-wing clampdown on bodily autonomy, radical networks of care are fighting back. From volunteer rescue boats in the Mediterranean to underground labs for preparing gender-affirming hormones, from the sharing of copyrighted health knowledge to the provision of abortion and contraception, people are reclaiming the means to care for one another in defiance of a system that devalues and exploits the labor of care. Against atomized despair, Pirate Care shows that fighting back isn't only about legal and legislative changes and organizing, direct action, and disobedient care.

In Europe and North America, we see a trend of the white working class being tempted by right-wing political parties. Fascistic candidates and ideas seem to reap the fruits of social unrest everywhere. With her usual thought-provoking and unyielding analyses, Houria Bouteldja shows how the history of the left explains this problem and how we can overcome it. Drawing from Black radical and decolonial Marxism, she shows that privileging white constituencies, unions, and left parties laid the foundations for a racial contract that binds workers and people experiencing poverty to the state. However, there may still be a way out of this trap. Uniting 'rednecks' (the white working class) and 'savages' (the racially oppressed), will require a project of popular sovereignty, where national identity is reworked through revolutionary love. Looking to the future, Bouteldja pictures anti-racism as a redemptive struggle aimed not only at rehabilitating non-whites but also at redefining white dignity.

Childbirth is often assumed to be a natural process, and yet the choices we make, risks we face, and care available to us around birth are entirely bound up in the dynamics of the capitalist system we live in. Capitalist relations shape childbirth in largely unacknowledged ways but with intensely inequitable and often traumatic effects. Going into Labour fills a void in the literature around both childbirth and reproductive rights, presenting a Marxist analysis of the labor of childbirth. Through each chapter, former midwife Anna Fielder interrogates and unpacks some of the critical features of contemporary childbirth and ultimately situates birth as a key site of the anti-capitalist struggle. Fielder delves into the 'natural' birth movement, the increasing engagement of women of color, working-class women, transgender and non-binary gendered people in the politics of birth, the pay and working conditions of caregivers such as midwives and nurses, and the sharp contrast between proliferating rates of cesarean section in the West, and a lack of access to the same (at times lifesaving) form of surgery elsewhere.

Social justice activist and academic Alan Sears delves into the underexplored relationship between alienated labor and sexuality. Our instinctual drive to shape the world around us and fulfill ourselves through labor is subverted by capitalist alienation, leaving us to find fulfillment elsewhere. As a result, our erotic drives become the central focus for transformation and life-making. Still, they are restricted and fuelled by whatever energy is left after completing the monetized or social reproductive work required to survive. This alienation encounters ongoing resistance, as life-making activity can never be entirely separated from the person who labors. Alan Sears explores the ways this alienation frames the processes of gender and sexual formation, showing how the organization of work contributes to the development of a dominant regime of gendered sexualities, defined by a binary gender mapping of desire as heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual.

'Femme' describes a constellation of queer, gendered expressions that uproot expectations of what it means to be feminine. Transfeminists take their experiences of desire, belonging, and harm to create collective power through femininity, fighting for marginalized and non-conforming people. Trans Femme Futures enriches this power. As trans people find themselves increasingly oppressed, envisioning a future is an act of revolution. The authors discuss struggles around trans healthcare and the need for collective autonomy, the importance of practicing self-care, transfeminism as abolition, and the role of Social Reproduction Theory. Ultimately the authors show how social transformation can be achieved through harnessing the knowledge that trans femmes are, have been, and can be agents of transformative practices that allow queer life to thrive, especially in this current moment of climate, health, political and economic crises.

Ghassan Kanafani (1936 - 1972) is perhaps the greatest Palestinian novelist whose books, including Men in the Sun and Returning to Haifa, documented the horrors of war and occupation. His life deeply inspired his literature as a political thinker, strategist, and revolutionary. Here, his writings on theory and contemporary politics are collected for the first time. From reflections on his readings of Marxist theory to historical studies and blazing analyses of contemporary geopolitical developments, this collection shows a fascinating intellectual evolution and a commitment to the fight for liberation. Resistance is the Essence is a testament to Kanafani's continuing relevance and contains new commentary from leading contemporary writers. Like many of his peers, agents of Israel assassinated Kanafani, but the impact of his work remains a testament to the power of revolutionary Palestinian struggle and anti-Zionist Arab thought.

In the years since #MeToo, a fundamental shift in public consciousness about sexual harassment in the workplace has taken root. So what are trade unions, whose mission is to improve workers' lives, doing to address sexual harassment? Solidarity Betrayed critiques the US labor movement's failures on the taboo subject of sexual harassment. Ana Avendaño draws on decades of organizing experience to provide a compelling insider's account of trade unions' complicity, collusion, victim blaming, and lack of perpetrator accountability. Sharing survivors' stories and examples of how labor leaders and bureaucrats have perpetrated abuse, Avendaño explores how labor laws and practices are accomplices in perpetuating harassment and how women labor leaders are too often enablers. She concludes with examples of what some unions do to address the problem and offers aspirational recommendations that unions and their allies can adopt to create harassment-free workplaces.

For decades, many people on the left have decried the finance sector as the main culprit for the toxic effects of capitalism. Financialization is commonly invoked to explain everything from growing inequality to the housing crises and the destruction of the environment. Only by confronting finance, as the story goes, can there be hope for a more sustainable economy. In this new intervention, Nick Bernards makes the case against the dominance of this story. Arguing that the concept of financialization tends to be ill-understood and overworked, Bernards shows how we risk glossing over the true nature of capitalism when focusing on the mythical powers of finance. The moralistic distinction between harmful 'financial' and more honest 'real' economies leads to an impasse if we want to understand better how exploitation truly manifests. Rather than indulging in the harmful fantasy that confronting the financial elite will fix the economy, Bernards provides an alternative approach. Starting from the premise that risk and speculation are core to the operation of all capital and not just the hallmark of a perverted financial sector, this Marxist reading of the interconnection between capitalism's uneven exploitation of labor and nature and financial capital lays the groundwork for a much-needed view of the real powers of finance.

There is much to learn from modern left-wing activism in Ireland. A rich tapestry of movements, including republicans, social democrats, trade unions, Trotskyists, and anarchists, they have been battling neoliberalism and austerity with vigor, frustration, success, and failure. Fragments of Victory charts these political currents, from the difficult early years of anti-austerity campaigning to the successful mass campaign to end water charges and prevent water privatization and the seismic victory that was 'Repeal' - the campaign for women's reproductive rights. Looking to the present, the campaign around the brutal housing crisis is also addressed. Each chapter covers a different campaign or group, written by leading activists who provide insider perspectives on how history was made and share valuable insights that can be applied to international movements everywhere.

Love it or hate it, it's hard to deny that British Trotskyism created some fascinating stories. Finding themselves increasingly irrelevant in modern politics, these political sects often became twisted aberrations of Comrade Trotsky's ideals. Gerry Healy's Workers Revolutionary Party was no exception. This new biography tells the story of Healy's life, picking apart fact from fiction, to reveal a man rotten to the core with authoritarian tendencies. Saturating the party with his personality, Healy took advantage of his comrades' trust and revolutionary zeal, eventually forcing a split in 1985. This is a tragic story in the history of Communism, wracked with accounts of abuse, collaboration with the state and vicious infighting. It also reveals the dangers of male-dominated political movements, secular cults, and celebrity culture, and is an important reminder of what can happen when a working-class movement is betrayed from within.

The red flag: There is no symbol, perhaps other than the crucifix and the crescent moon, for which so many people have lived and died. A standard of hope and resistance to millions and of terror and tyranny to many. But why is the red flag red? How did it come to represent the workers against the propertied class? And how did it travel the world? In Henry Bell's lively account, we journey around the globe and back through history, tracing the lineage of the red flag as both a material object and a symbol. The book explores the triumphs and disasters of the flag's history, its designers and makers, heroes and villains, and the utopias and wastelands that have kept the red flag flying. From its martial beginnings in Rome and France to the raising of a blood-stained flag at the Merthyr Rising and the arrival of the red flag at the Paris Commune, from the jungles of north-eastern India to the factories of Cuba, Red Threads explores how this symbol of working-class power first came to be held aloft in the hands of revolutionaries; who raises it today; and its meaning for the future.

How can we harness society's potential to change the trajectory of the climate crisis? So many of us feel helpless in the face of corporate environmental destruction; however, in Practicing Social Ecology, Eleanor Finley shows an amazing reserve of untapped power in our communities; we need to know how to use it. Drawing from her experience working in democratic ecology movements, from the revolution in Rojava to Barcelona's municipalist campaign and beyond, she shows how to develop assemblies, confederations, study groups, and permaculture projects. Looking to history, she maps out how social ecologists, such as Murray Bookchin, have led inspirational struggles around climate and energy, agriculture and biotechnology, globalization, and economic inequality. This guide is perfect for anyone curious about how to challenge unending capitalist growth through the democratic power of social ecology.

Marxism and Film share at least one thing in common: they are both interested in the masses.From the introductionFilm remains one of the most dominant cultural forms in the world today. Crossing classes and cultures, it permeates many aspects of our consciousness. In film, perhaps more than any other medium, we can read the politics of time and place, past and present. The history of Marxism has intersected with film in many ways and this book is a timely reminder of the fruits of that intersection, in film theory and film practice. Marxist film theory returns to film studies some of the key concepts which make possible a truly radical, political understanding of the medium and its place both within capitalism and against it. This book shows how questions of ideology, technology and industry must be situated in relation to class - a category which academia is distinctly uncomfortable with. It explores the work of some of the key theorists who have influenced our understanding of film, such as Adorno, Althusser, Benjamin, Brecht, Gramsci, Jameson and others. It shows how films must be situated in their social and historical contexts, whether Hollywood, Russian, Cuban, Chinese or North Korean cinema. The authors explore the political contradictions and tensions within dominant cinema and discuss how Marxist filmmakers have pushed the medium in new and exciting directions.

The unprecedented and tragic events in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania left an indelible mark on world politics. Civilian deaths in horrific circumstances triggered an uncompromising response from the US administration and its allies: an open-ended 'war on terrorism'. This anthology includes some of the world's leading commentators - Noam Chomsky, Robert Fisk, Naomi Klein, John Pilger, Paul Foot and A.Sivanandan. It presents accessible, detailed and often deeply personal accounts of the aftermath, the bombing of Afghanistan and the dubious claims for its legality. From investigative journalists to critical academics, human rights lawyers and anti-racist campaigners, the contributors are united in their opposition to military intervention in Afghanistan and beyond and to the attack on civil liberties in the US, the UK and Europe. From the US and Canada, Herman and Julia Schwendinger, Jonathan Farley, Tony Platt, Cecilia O'Leary, Christian Parenti and Michael Mandel are among critical academics who assess the validity, lawfulness and political consequences of the Bush/Blair agenda. European based commentators include Martti Gronfors and Thomas Mathiesen. Examining the the context and rhetoric of US vengeance -- ennobled by the symbolic title 'Enduring Freedom' -- they challenge political and popular definitions, constructions, pathologisation and reporting of terrorism. In questioning the representation of war as 'just', the anthology focuses on civilian deaths in Afghanistan, evidence of US/allied atrocities, violations of prisoners' rights and US determination to escalate military offensives, regardless of global destabilisation.

As the world watches with horror the unfolding events in Palestine and Israel, Marc Ellis, a Jewish American scholar, examines what he sees as a crisis point in Jewish identity. In this book, Ellis offers a vision of Judaism that testifies to an ethical life in our era, based on the principles of justice and community upon which the Jewish faith was founded. Only by addressing the way in which those original principles are being squandered by a miltarized state of Israel and a complicit Jewish establishment in America, he argues, can there be hope for peace in the future. Israel and Palestine: Out of the Ashes is a deeply personal, philosophical account of contemporary Jewish identity. Looking beyond the legacy of the Holocaust and beyond the portrayal of Jews as either victims or persecutors, Ellis forges a new vision of what it means to be Jewish today.

'Eloquent and powerful ... an invaluable collection of forgotten histories. The authors show that colonial conquest was not only about erasing, expropriating, dispossessing, extracting, exploiting, but also looting and trafficking. They make the case for unconditional restitutions and returns' Françoise Vergès, author of A Programme of Absolute Disorder: Decolonizing the Museum'Brings much-needed diversity to a debate that has for too long focused on a very few cases mainly seen from a European perspective. A great introduction to the history behind the restitution process' Felicity Bodenstein, Lecturer, Sorbonne Université'By focusing on colonial violence, this book not only reminds us of the nature of colonialism itself, but also of the unabated necessity to continue scrutinising museum collections and work towards restitution' Larissa Förster, Department of European Ethnology, Humboldt-Universität zu BerlinDebates around restitution and decolonising museums continue to rage across the world. Artefacts, effigies and ancestral remains are finally being accurately contextualised and repatriated to their homelands.Fifteen Colonial Thefts amplifies and adds to these discussions, exploring the history of colonial violence in Africa through the prism of fifteen African belongings - all looted at the height of the imperial era and brought to Western museums.Each chapter is accompanied by an original illustration, commissioned especially for the book, from both established and emerging African artists, bringing these stories to life for the reader. With contributors from across the continents of Europe and Africa, including scientists, museum professionals, artists and activists, the book illuminates the collective trauma and loss of cultural, historical and spiritual knowledge that colonial theft engendered.Sela K. Adjei is a multidisciplinary artist and researcher. He is a lecturer at the University of Media, Arts and Communication, Institute of Film and Television, Accra, Ghana.Yann LeGall is a postdoctoral researcher on the project 'The Restitution of Knowledge: Artefacts as Archives in the (Post) Colonial Museum' at the Technical University in Berlin. As a member of the initiatives Berlin Postkolonial and Postcolonial Potsdam, he leads guided tours on colonial history in both cities.The book includes a foreword by Peju Layiwola, an art historian and visual artist from Nigeria. She is Professor of Art and Art History at the University of Lagos. Her works can be found in Yemisi Shyllon Museum, Lagos, and in the homes of many private collectors. Her maternal grandfather was Oba Akenzua II, King of Benin, who ruled from 1933 until 1978. Layiwola has led public advocacy for the return of art works stolen from Benin during the Punitive Expedition of 1897.

"Outstanding ... A rich, hopeful, and indispensable guide [that] shows us how the world could be borderless, flourishing, free"-Luke de Noronha, co-author, Against Borders: The Case For Abolition "Groundbreaking. This is learning at its most powerful, reframing thinking and activism with the aim of building justice"-Bridget Anderson, Professor, University of BristolBorders must be abolished. Borders produce and are produced by carceral, racist, classist, sexist, and xenophobic regimes. Border Abolition Now demands transformative politics to dismantle these systems of oppression.Taking the key tenets of abolitionism and applying them to the debate around borders, the contributors bring a rich understanding of the history and context of carceral and policing systems. Heralding from different countries, disciplines, and activist struggles, they show how their theories are being realized through feminist decolonial praxis, and how personal experiences of borders and organizing against them inform abolition.Expanding the debate to areas including asylum, detention camps, mobility, and climate change, Border Abolition Now offers new tools for anyone working to defend freedom of movement for all. Sara Riva is a Marie Sk¿odowska-Curie Research Fellow at the Spanish National Research Council and the University of Queensland. Simon Campbell is an activist-researcher focusing on border infrastructures, state violence and abolitionist struggles against the border regime. Brian Whitener is an Associate Professor of Spanish at the University at Buffalo and author of Crisis Cultures: The Rise of Finance in Mexico and Brazil. Kathryn Medien is a Lecturer in Sociology at The Open University.

'A compelling account of how antiblackness and colonialism maintain a grip on the infrastructure of global health, showing us where to aim the hammer in our efforts to knock them off'-Seye Abimbola, University of Sydney'Reveals the faultlines of inequality and racism in global health formed by colonialism and how they continue to shape global public health practice. A must read'-Rashida Ferrand, Director, The Health Research Unit Zimbabwe'A compelling and original account linking antiblackness to the coloniality of contemporary global health practice, and the racial politics of care during a public health emergency'-Adia Benton, author of HIV ExceptionalismThis major new account of the 2014-2016 West African Ebola crisis offers a radical perspective on the racial politics of global health. Lioba Hirsch traces the legacies of colonialism across the landscape of global health in Sierra Leone, showing how this history underpinned the international response to Ebola. The book moves from the material and atmospheric traces of colonialism and enslavement in Freetown, to the forms of knowledge presented in colonial archives and in contemporary expert accounts, to disease control and care practices. As the Covid-19 pandemic has revealed, health inequalities around the world disproportionately affect people of African descent. This book aims to equip critical scholars, medical and humanitarian practitioners, policy makers and health activists with the tools and knowledge to challenge antiblackness in global health practice and politics.Lioba Hirsch is a Wellcome Research Fellow and Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh.

A vibrant squatting scene continues to push boundaries in one of the world's most policed cities

'A must-read exposé of one of Britain's biggest hidden scandals' Frances Ryan, Guardian journalist and author of Crippled: Austerity and the Demonisation of Disabled People'This is the definitive proof of how government austerity hasn't just harmed disabled people, it has killed them' John McDonnell MPIn the early 2010s, reports began to emerge of deaths linked to a government department. Suicide notes, coroners' reports, and research by disabled activists pointed to failings within the Department for Work and Pensions - the DWP - the government body responsible for the disability benefits system.As years passed, and austerity tightened its grip, the death toll mounted, and an even more disturbing picture emerged: bureaucracy, politicians, and the private sector had combined over thirty years to reckless, deadly effect.For the last decade, disabled journalist John Pring has meticulously pieced together how the DWP ignored pleas to correct fatal flaws in the social security system and covered up its role in the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of disabled people. Having spent years researching the heartbreaking stories of twelve individuals who died, he describes how their bereaved families have fought for justice and accountability.John Pring is founder and editor of the news agency Disability News Service. He is co-creator of the Deaths by Welfare timeline, and co-editor and specialist advisor on the award-winning Museum of Austerity project. His stories have appeared in the Guardian, Daily Mirror and Private Eye. He is also the author of Longcare Survivors: The Biography of a Care Scandal.

'Thanks to this superb translation, English-language readers finally have access to a classic work of prison literature that has played a major role in keeping alive the memory of the crimes of Franco'-Paul Preston, historian and author of Architects of Terror'A humane, vivid and painfully honest testimony of incarceration under two fascist systems that flares up an urgent signal in our moment of clear and present danger'-Helen Graham, Professor Emeritus, Royal HollowayThis is the story of a woman who resisted two totalitarian regimes. Mercedes Núñez Targa was a Catalan socialist imprisoned under the Franco dictatorship. On her release, she joined the French Resistance and was subsequently arrested by the German Gestapo.This is her story in her own words. Her vivid writings about her time in Ventas prison in Madrid reveal the contrast between the horrific conditions in the prison and the prisoners' incredible spirit and endurance. Later, writing about her confinement in a Nazi concentration camp, she describes the violence of the SS guards and her comrades' own pitiful conditions, showing how the appalling treatment only united the women further. This is the first time her story has been available in English, her words providing a unique opportunity to further understand female solidarity and resistance against the dreadful power of fascism. Mercedes Núñez Targa (1911-1986) was born in Barcelona. She became an active member of the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia from an early age. Her outrage at Franco's military coup in 1936 galvanised her commitment to the fight against fascism. Arrested in 1939, she spent most of the next six years in fascist prisons in Spain and Nazi Germany. Freed at the end of the war, Núñez Targa continued to campaign against the Franco regime while in exile, and finally returned to Spain after Franco's death. She died in Spain in 1986.

A groundbreaking collection from individuals and organisations at the forefront of transformative antiracist work