Category: Past SHS Meetings
Louise Cripps Samoiloff by Christian Høgsbjerg
Christian Høgsbjerg launched his new publication for the Socialist History Society on March 27th at 7pm
Also speaking was Martin Samoiloff, Louise’s grandson
The book is available from Bookmarks bookshop…
This book introduces the remarkable life and work of Louise Cripps Samoiloff (1904-2001), an English born writer, journalist, publisher, historian and socialist who became an American citizen and was the author of over a dozen books, many of which articulated the case for the independence of Puerto Rico. Read on ...
Zionism During the Holocaust
A Socialist History Society Zoom Meeting – Speaker: Tony Greenstein
19th January 2023
Tony Greenstein is a longstanding Jewish anti-Zionist and an anti-fascist activist from Brighton.
Tony is the author of The Fight Against Fascism in Brighton and the South Coast and now Zionism During the Holocaust. He has written extensively on Palestine and Zionism for, amongst others, the Guardian’s Comment is Free, the Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies, Tribune, Jacobin, Open Democracy and the Weekly Worker. Read on ...
Iraq’s cultural heritage: Theft of Artefacts following the US/UK Intervention
A talk by Kryss Katsiavriades
Iraq has managed to sustain one of the most ancient civilisations throughout all of history, in great comparison with Egypt, who also happens to uphold one of the most ancient and culturally rich civilisations. Within the ancient Mesopotamian culture, multiple different genres and forms of arts were created, from Assyrian art pieces to Babylonian, all representing a certain aspect of the traditions and rituals that were sustained throughout the particular time frame of their creation. Read on ...
The Anarchist Mecca? The French Anarchists in London, 1880-1914
Speaker – Constance Bantman
Five hundred or so French anarchists were exiled in London between 1880 and 1914. As the anarchist movement went through a terrorist phase which was especially bloody in France, the drastic repression that followed forced hundreds of ‘companions’ (the nickname of anarchists) out of the country. As most European countries closed their borders to political refugees – and above all the highly-stigmatised anarchists – at the end of the nineteenth century, Britain remained the one country offering shelter to such dissident and potentially dangerous groups, and therefore became the rallying point for international radical exiles, an unrivalled militant hub. Read on ...
Valentine Ackland
A Transgressive Life
Speaker: Frances Bingham
Valentine Ackland was a poet, gender-rebel, and lover of the writer Sylvia Townsend Warner. For much of her life she was under MI5 surveillance for ‘abnormality’ as well as Communism. This talk about Ackland’s transgressive life, by her biographer Frances Bingham, considers her lifelong political activism – which included volunteering for the Spanish Civil War – and the personal politics of her gender deviance. Read on ...