The growing recognition of socialism and socialist thought as a jumping off point.

I noticed after rereading my last post that there were still things I felt were needed to be said. I’ve mentioned previously that one of the clear benefits of the growing recognition of socialism within the mainstream political discourse is that it forces peoples true intentions out into the open. For instance, there are those who like pretending to care about other people, but when faced with the possibility of a progressive taxation system in…

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Anarchists, Nazis and the People’s Olympics

In 2012 several things came together in my life at the same time, the essay Gold or Freedom is the first manifestation of that direction. I had been toying with the idea of writing a novel set during the Spanish civil war for several years. During the research stage I came across several historians that were writing in a way that went beyond the standard history texts. Professor Helen Graham's short introduction and Chris Ealham's…

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My first novel, A Most Uncivil War

I've just got around to putting the details up about my first book, a Spanish Civil War novel called A Most Uncivil War. The idea for this novel came about after several people commented on a couple of my essays that had recently been published on the war. One was focussed on the anarchist revolution and the other was on the people's Olympics in Barcelona. I spent some time going through my notes and realised…

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Study of an anarchist revolution

In the early 1930s, the ruling elite in Spain found themselves caught between conservative fascists and social democrats. In contrast large sections of the population were divided along communist and anarchist lines. The compromise offered up by the ruling class was a progressive and democratic system of government. But this was a step too far for many of the ruling class and they responded by attempting to take control of the country through military force.…

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