Selected Political Writings gathers Stuart Hall's best-known and most important essays that directly engage with political issues. Written between 1957 and 2011 and appearing in publications such as New Left Review and Marxism Today, these twenty essays span the whole of Hall's career, from his early involvement with the New Left, to his critique of Thatcherism, to his later focus on neoliberalism. Whether addressing economic decline and class struggle, the Cuban Missile Crisis, or the politics of empire, Hall's singular commentary and theorizations make this volume essential for anyone interested in the politics of the last sixty years.
Stuart Hall (1932–2014) was one of the most prominent and influential scholars and public intellectuals of his generation. Hall appeared widely on British media, taught at the University of Birmingham and the Open University, was the founding editor of New Left Review, and served as the director of Birmingham’s Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies. He is the author of Familiar Stranger: A Life between Two Islands and Cultural Studies 1983: A Theoretical History, both also published by Duke University Press. Sally Davison is the managing editor at Lawrence & Wishart and the editor of Soundings. David Featherstone is Senior Lecturer of Geographical and Earth Sciences at the University of Glasgow. Michael Rustin is Professor of Sociology at the University of East London. Bill Schwarz is Professor of English at Queen Mary University of London.
Table of Contents
Introduction / Sally Davison, David Featherstone and Bill Schwarz 1 Note on Texts 16 Part 1: The New Left and after 1. The new Conservatism and the old (1957) 18 2. A sense of classlessness (1958) 28 3. The supply of demand (1960) 47 4. The Cuban crisis: trial-run or steps towards peace? (1963) 70 5. Political commitment (1966) 85 6. A world at one with itself (1970) 107 7. The first New Left: life and times (1990) 117 Part 2: Thatcherism 8. Racism and reaction (1978) 142 9. 1970: Birth of the law and order society (1978) 158 10. The great moving right show (1979) 172 11. The 'Little Caesars' of social democracy (1981) 187 12. The empire strikes back (1982) 200 13. The crisis of Labourism (1984) 207 14. The state: socialism's old caretaker (1984) 223 15. Blue election, election blues (1987) 238 16. The meaning of new times (1989) 248 17. And not a shot fired: the end of Thatcherism? (1991) 266 18. Our mongrel selves (1992) 275 Part 3: Neoliberalism 19. The great moving nowhere show (1998) 283 20. New Labour's double-shuffle (2003) 301 21. The neoliberal revolution (2011) 317 Afterword / Michael Rustin 336 Notes on historical figures 354 Index 361
"Stuart Hall was one of the great political intellectuals of our time—learned, perspicacious, provocative, and wise. He was also a master essayist. This splendid selection, spanning more than fifty years, is a feast."
Hazel Carby
"Hall's writings make an extremely important contribution not only in our understanding of the past and the cultural, political, sociological, and theoretical formations that Hall analyzed, but as documents that provide us with powerful political and theoretical tools to understand our present and change our future."
