Culture

Articles

It was 40 years ago today, John and Yoko taught the world to play by Colin Robinson (May 2009)

John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s ‘Bed-In’ at the Amsterdam Hilton in 1969 was only a part of their broad-ranging commitment to peace campaigning. Colin Robinson looks back at one of the most famous – and media-savvy – protests of all time

A tale of three Michaels by Michael Horovitz (May 2009)

He was a pimp, pusher and political activist, with a penchant for the outlandish and an ability to attract support from the rich and famous. Until his murder conviction and hanging in Trinidad in 1975, Michael X was one of the best-known figures of 1960s radicalism. Michael Horovitz reviews a new account of the life of this self-styled black Muslim revolutionary

Free as in freedom by Nick Buxton (April 2009)

Are people freely swapping music, films and other files over the internet undermining corporate control of entertainment and creating a revolutionary culture of sharing and universal access to knowledge? Nick Buxton explores the political edge of the digital piracy and ‘free culture’ movements

Viva Siva by Arun Kundnani (April 2009)

Now in his eighties, A Sivanandan remains an important figure in the politics of race and class, maintaining his long-held insistence that only in the symbiosis of the two struggles can a genuinely radical politics be found. By Arun Kundnani

Pitmen painters by Steve Platt (February 2009)

Six days a week they toiled down the mine, making art in their spare time after attending a Workers Education Association art appreciation class. The Ashington Group of miner-artists is the subject of a witty and wise play by Billy Elliot writer Lee Hall, currently showing at the National Theatre, that has much to tell us about art, culture and the working class, writes Steve Platt

In words and silences by Hilary Wainwright (December 2008)

Hilary Wainwright reflects on Harold Pinter and Red Pepper