Elaine Titcombe. History PhD Student, The University of the West of England, Bristol. In 1984 the doomsday clock reached three minutes to midnight. This was the closest recorded time to global destruction defined (at that time) as imminence to nuclear war, since 1953. This crisis arose as a result of an escalation of militarism between the East and West Superpowers, following the NATO decision in 1979 to modernise their theatre of nuclear weapons in response to the perceived superiority of the […]
British armed forces’ strikes and mutinies in 1918-19: a radical history project for the anniversary of World War I BRHG’s very own Roger Ball will kick off the afternoon with the conveniently forgotten history of British armed forces’ post WWI strikes and mutinies. Roger reveals how the mass refusal of troops across Europe included expressions of militant dissent in Britain. Such widespread revolt led to the collapse of the Allied invasion of Soviet Russia. The second part of the meeting will […]
The Radical History Zone of the Bristol Anarchist Book Fair will get off to a cracking start as author Eveline Lubbers shines a light on corporate and police spying on activists – the topic of her new book, Secret Manoeuvres in the Dark. In the best tradition of radical Investigative research. Secret Manoeuvres includes revelations from the Economic League’s blacklisting of trade unionists, to the McLibel case to the high-profile exposure of police spy Mark Kennedy. Secret Manoeuvres treads on […]
Meet at Gardiner Haskins Car Park (near Old Market), New Thomas Street, BS2 0JP As a belated launch for three new pamphlets released by BRHG in 2012-13 (The Bristol Strike Wave of 1889-1890 Socialists, New Unionists and New Women - Part 1: Days of Hope, Part 2: Days of Doubt and The Origins and an Account of Black Friday - 23rd December 1892) authors Mike Richardson and Roger Ball will navigate us through one of the most intense periods of class struggle in Bristol in the late 19th Century. In […]
Permanent Culture Now, Bristol Indymedia and Bristol Radical History Group are proud to present as part of the Bristol Radical Film Festival a presentation and series of films about how propaganda was used by the Establishment during the time of the Empire and Colonialism to persuade our own population of the greatness of the empire. The techniques and manipulation of information have a resonance for today as we constantly see propaganda techniques used to justify illegal wars and policy […]
Book Launch - Physical Resistance: A Hundred Year's of Anti-Fascism by Dave Hann Large-scale confrontations, disruption of meetings, sabotage and street fighting have been part of the practice of anti-fascism from the early twentieth century until the twenty-first. Rarely endorsed by any political party, the use of collective bodily strength remains a strategy of activists working in alliances and coalitions against fascism. In Physical Resistance famous battles against fascists, from the […]
Resistance to Debt is increasingly the way that class struggle is being expressed today. But debt resistance is not new. In Ancient Rome the battles between debtors and creditors were real ones, fought to the finish. This kind of struggle has returned in the late 20th century in many parts of the world though in a less bloody manner. Caffentzis will discuss one of the largest debt resistors' organization in history, the El Barzon (or The Yoke) movement in Mexico in the 1990s. A number of common […]
Public Lecture by Silvia Federici and launch of her new book: Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle (PM Press, 2012) Written between 1974 and the present, Revolution at Point Zero collects forty years of research and theorizing on the nature of housework, social reproduction, and women’s struggles on this terrain—to escape it, to better its conditions, to reconstruct it in ways that provide an alternative to capitalist relations. Indeed, as Federici reveals, […]
Niebyl-Proctor Library 6501 Telegraph - one block north of Alcatraz Oakland USA Bart: Ashby The Bristol Radical History Group (BRHG) from the UK explores history from below, opening up hidden histories and critiquing mainstream narratives. Bristol Radical History Group was born from an expanded sports club with the idea of opening up the hidden history of their home city to public scrutiny, to challenge some commonly held ideas about historical events and approach this history from ‘below’. The […]
The Hold Out 2313 San Pablo Ave, Oakland CA, USA The August ‘riots’ in Britain last summer were portrayed by the media and politicians as the actions of ‘greedy feral youth’ or ‘gangs’ within a ‘criminal underclass’. Most of these politically loaded explanations were presented before what had happened was even known. Using hard research and the voices of participants, this event will provide an analysis of the ‘riots’ of August, considering what (actually) happened, who was involved and how they […]
