Alright up to a point (2019)

Book Review from the August 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Many Not the Few. An Illustrated History of Britain Shaped by the People. By Sean Michael Wilson and Robert Brown. Workable Books. 2019. £9.99.

This is a primer, in the cartoon form of conversations between a retired trade unionist and his granddaughter, of working class, or rather lower class (since it starts with the Peasants’ Revolt), history, aimed at those new to trade unionism and ‘labour’ politics. Wat Tyler, the Levellers, the Diggers, Peterloo, the Chartists, the match girls’ strike, they are all there. When, however, it comes to the twentieth century and the formation of the Labour Party it becomes tendentious; which no doubt explains why it comes with a preface and recommendation from Jeremy Corbyn.

However, Corbyn might be embarrassed (or maybe not) by the anti-EU and pro-Brexit stance taken at the end. This, no doubt, is due to the ‘history adviser’ being Doug Nicholls, a frequent contributor to the Morning Star and first chair of Trade Unionists Against the European Union. There is a mysterious reference to a ‘Worker’s Liberty’ website on page 109, odd because if that’s to the trotskyoid AWL they are anti-Brexit. In any event, dragging in Brexit will date the book and, besides, has nothing to do with working class history.

Adam Buick