Against Miserabilism

“Socialists are people too. Their lives are not all about `politics’. Indeed the strength of Widgery’s writings is to show how it is only the lived experience of people’s lives that makes their politics real. There are only a handful of revolutionary socialists who have ever been able to write convincingly about popular music, about suffering and dying – and indeed self-critically about the successes and failures of the socialist movement itself. It is astonishing to read pieces written 30/40 years ago that are so prescient. This collection is a living memorial to and by one of the finest writers and critics ever produced by the revolutionary left.” – Stuart Weir, former editor of the New Statesman (1987-91); founder of the democratic movement Charter 88; “This anthology is as much a historical document as it is of interest as a reflection of the continuity of humanistic left concerns and principles between the 1960s and 1970s and now. It is the work of an inspired individual who is of interest as a doctor and agitator.” – Nina Power, writer and academic, senior lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Roehampton, and tutor in Critical Writing in Art & Design at the Royal College of Art