Defeat from the Jaws of Victory: Inside Kinnock's Labour Party

"Defeat from the Jaws of Victory" takes the reader behind closed doors to witness the Labour Party hierarchy in action - rigging votes, stage-managing meetings, dispensing patronage to favourites, and settling scores with enemies. Riding high on the backlash against the Bennite rebellion of the early 1980s, Neil Kinnock built the most autocratic regime in Labour's history. Centralizing power in his private office, he destroyed the Party's democratic structures, stripped it of anti-establishment policies and purged it of radical members whilst allowing a new careerist clique to install itself in every nook and cranny of the Labour machine. Under his aegis the party lost tens of thousands of members, ran up a #2.5million overdraft and proved incapable of removing an unpopular Tory government, even in the midst of the worst recession since the War. Using extensive research in Labour's archives, interviews with shadow cabinet members, Labour Party employees and rank and the file activitists, "Defeat from the Jaws of Victory" is packed with hitherto untold stories, revealing anecdotes, and concise analysis.

Politics & Social Sciences

Marqusee, Mike

Heffernan, Richard

Politics & Government

Verso Books

Anyone But England: Cricket and the National Malaise

Anyone But England is a timely and entertaining exploration of the bonds which the English cricket to the English nation as both face apparently inexorable decline. Mike Marqusee, an American who has lived in England for twenty years, turns the amused gaze of an outsider on to the idiosyncrasies of the English at play, delving into the interminable wrangles over coloured clothing, covered pitches and commercial sponsorship. Yet Marqusee also displays the knowledgeability and passion of a dedicated cricket follower who has watched matches on four continents. His elegant and concise accounts of the origins of the game, its romance with the British Empire, and its traumatic adjustment to the modern market lift the lid on the paradoxes and hypocrisies that have made cricket what it is: democratic and elitist, national and international, ancient and modern. In a revealing scrutiny of the long saga of South Africa's exclusion from world cricket, Marqusee charts England's collusion with apartheid. Spectacularly failing the Tebbit test on every point, his eye-opening account of Pakistan's controversial 'ball-tampering' tour of England will provoke intense debate amongst cricket fans about the role of both the media and racism in the modern game. From the phoney war over the omission of Gower from the England side to England's women cricketers receiving the World Cup outside the Lord's pavilion from which they are banned, Anyone But England goes where no cricket book has gone before. In so doing it sheds new light not only on cricket but also on what it means to be part of a nation for whom the game is well and truly up.

Sports & Outdoors

Miscellaneous

Verso

“I’m in it to win. That’s my attitude to life and to politics.”—Neil Kinnock, December 1989Defeat from the Jaws of Victory takes the reader behind closed doors to witness Kinnock’s Labour hierarchy in action—fixing votes, stage-managing meetings, dispensing patronage to favourites and settling scores with enemies.Riding high on the backlash against the Bennite rebellion of the early 1980s, Kinnock went on to build the most autocratic regime in Labour’s history. Centralizing power in a vastly expanded private office, he destroyed the party’s democratic structures, stripped it of any trace of radical policy, and purged it of hundreds of dissident members. Every nook and cranny of the Labour machine was filled with careerists whose primary qualification was personal loyalty to their leader. Under Kinnock’s aegis the party ran up a £2.5 million overdraft, and proved incapable of removing an unpopular Tory government in the midst of the worst recession since the war.Heffernan and Marqusee employ extensive research in Labour’s archives and interviews with leading MPs, party employees and constituency members to chronicle, with unsparing accuracy, a decade-long drive for power which was ruthless, reactionary and, in the final analysis, spectacularly unsuccessful.

Literature and art, uses extracts from novels, poems, songs, satire, historicla documents, diaries, anecdotes and journalism. Photographs engravings, murals, posters etc.

New York: An Illustrated Anthology

Travel

United States

Salem House Pub.

Anyone But England is a detailed exploration into the origins of cricket; the romance, cultural identity, hypocrisy, flaws of governance and glory of the game. Mike Marqusee, an American who fell in love with cricket when he moved to the UK in the 1970s, looks at the history of elitism and empire, and how race and class have always been issues in the game. Scrutinising the long saga of South Africa's exclusion from world cricket, Marqusee charts England's collusion with apartheid, and also details an eye-opening account of Pakistan's controversial 'ball-tampering' tour of England, which provoked intense debate amongst cricket fans about the role of both the media and racism in the modern game. Showing that supporting the game does not mean you need be blind to its flaws, Marqusee's passion and enthusiasm for cricket is threaded through every element of Anyone But England.Winner of the Aberdare Literary Prize, awarded by the British Society of Sports History, 1994Shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award, 1994

Anyone but England: Cricket, Race and Class

Bloomsbury Caravel

Looks at the early works of Bob Dylan, which were used as protest songs, and how he moved away from politics in his music with his later works.

Chimes of Freedom: The Politics of Bob Dylan's Art

Arts & Photography

Music

New Pr

Bob Dylan’s abrupt abandonment of overtly political songwriting in the mid-1960s caused an uproar among critics and fans. In Wicked Messenger, acclaimed cultural-political commentator Mike Marqusee advances the new thesis that Dylan did not drop politics from his songs but changed the manner of his critique to address the changing political and cultural climate and, more importantly, his own evolving aesthetic. Wicked Messenger is also a riveting political history of the United States in the 1960s. Tracing the development of the decade’s political and cultural dissent movements, Marqusee shows how their twists and turns were anticipated in the poetic aesthetic—anarchic, unaccountable, contradictory, punk— of Dylan's mid-sixties albums, as well as in his recent artistic ventures in Chronicles, Vol. I and Masked and Anonymous. Dylan’s anguished, self-obsessed, prickly artistic evolution, Marqusee asserts, was a deeply creative response to a deeply disturbing situation. "He can no longer tell the story straight," Marqusee concludes, "because any story told straight is a false one."

Wicked Messenger: Bob Dylan And the 1960s

Humor & Entertainment

Seven Stories Press

A classic book that traces Muhammad Ali’s political development in the sixties When Muhammad Ali died, many mourned the life of the greatest sportsman the world had ever seen. In Redemption Song, Mike Marqusee argues that Ali was not only a boxer but a remarkable political figure in a decade of tumultuous change. Playful, popular, always confrontational, Ali refashioned the role of a political activist and was central, alongside figures such as Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, to the black liberation and the anti-war movements. Marqusee shows that sport and politics were always intertwined, and this is the reason why Ali remained an international beacon of hope, long after he had left the ring.

Redemption Song: Muhammad Ali and the Spirit of the Sixties

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

If I Am Not For Myselfis a passionate, thought-provoking exploration of what it means to beJewish in the twenty-first century. It traces the author’s upbringingin 1960s Jewish-American surburbia, his anti-war and pro-Palestinianactivism on the British left, and life as a Jew among Muslims inPakistan, Morocco, and Britain. Interwoven with this are theexperiences of his grandfather’s life in Jewish New York of the 1930sand 40s, his struggles with anti-Semitism and the twists and turns thatled him from anti-fascism to militant Zionism. In the course of thisdeeply personal story, Marqusee refutes the claims of Israel andZionism on Jewish loyalty and laments their impact on the Jewishdiaspora. Rather, he argues for a richer, more multi-dimensionalunderstanding of Jewish history and identity, and reclaims vitalpolitical and personal space for those castigated as “self-haters” bythe Jewish establishment.

If I Am Not For Myself: Journey of an Anti-Zionist Jew

Memoirs

If I Am Not For Myself is a passionate, thought-provoking exploration of what it means to be Jewish in the twenty-first century. It traces the author’s upbringing in 1960s Jewish-American suburbia, his anti-war and pro-Palestinian activism on the British left, and life as a Jew among Muslims in Pakistan, Morocco, and Britain. Interwoven with this are the experiences of his grandfather’s life in Jewish New York of the 1930s and 40s, his struggles with anti-Semitism and the twists and turns that led him from anti-fascism to militant Zionism. In the course of this deeply personal story, Marqusee refutes the claims of Israel and Zionism on Jewish loyalty and laments their impact on the Jewish diaspora. Rather, he argues for a richer, more multi-dimensional understanding of Jewish history and identity, and reclaims vital political and personal space for those castigated as “self-haters” by the Jewish establishment.

Professionals & Academics

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Marqusee, Mike. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Marqusee, Mike

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Marqusee, Mike. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Defeat from the Jaws of Victory: Inside Kinnock's Labour Party

Anyone But England: Cricket and the National Malaise

Defeat from the Jaws of Victory: Inside Kinnock's Labour Party

New York: An Illustrated Anthology

Anyone but England: Cricket, Race and Class

Chimes of Freedom: The Politics of Bob Dylan's Art

Wicked Messenger: Bob Dylan And the 1960s

Redemption Song: Muhammad Ali and the Spirit of the Sixties

If I Am Not For Myself: Journey of an Anti-Zionist Jew

If I Am Not For Myself: Journey of an Anti-Zionist Jew