Familiar Stranger

Apr 26, 2025 10:10 AM

Author:Stuart Hall

Familiar Stranger

'This is a miracle of a book' George Lamming

'Compelling. Stuart Hall's story is the story of an age' Owen Jones

'Sometimes I feel I was the last colonial'

This is the story, in his own words, of the extraordinary life of Stuart Hall: writer, thinker and one of the leading intellectual lights of his age. Growing up in a middle-class family in 1930s Jamaica, then still a British colony, Hall found himself caught between two worlds: the stiflingly respectable middle class in Kingston, who, in their habits and ambitions, measured themselves against the white planter elite; and working-class and peasant Jamaica, neglected and grindingly poor, though rich in culture, music and history. But as colonial rule was challenged, things began to change in Jamaica and across the world.

When, in 1951, a scholarship took him across the Atlantic to Oxford University, Hall encountered other Caribbean writers and thinkers, from Sam Selvon and George Lamming to V. S. Naipaul. He also forged friendships with the likes of Raymond Williams and E. P. Thompson, with whom he worked in the formidable political movement, the New Left, and developed his groundbreaking ideas on cultural theory. Familiar Stranger takes us to the heart of Hall's struggle in post-war England: that of building a home and a life in a country where, rapidly, radically, the social landscape was transforming, and urgent new questions of race, class and identity were coming to light.

Told with passion and wisdom, this is a story of how the forces of history shape who we are.

Reviews

Much more than a memoir, Familiar Stranger is a fascinating insight into how a life shapes a brilliant mind

—— Andrea Levy

This is a miracle of a book

—— George Lamming

Compelling. Stuart Hall's story is the story of an age. He was a pioneer in the struggle for racial, cultural, and political liberation. He has transformed the way we think

—— Owen Jones

Vivid... a subtle and subversive memoir of the end of Empire

—— Colin Grant , Guardian

For generations, the Cold War was context, the inescapable setting of political life. This history sets the Cold War itself in context, within the greater landscape of world history, deeply understood, and masterfully presented. It is a powerful synthesis by one of our great historians

—— Timothy Snyder, author of Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin

Westad has produced a grand narrative of the Cold War. Defining it as a struggle between capitalism and socialism as well as a bipolar international system, Westad brilliantly illustrates its ideological, geopolitical, technological, and economic dimensions. Westad, the world's foremost scholar of the Cold War, once again dazzles readers with the scope and depth of his analysis

—— Melvyn P. Leffler, Edward Stettinius Professor of American History, Miller Center, University of Virginia

The Cold War is the history of the twentieth century and the foundation for our current world. Arne Westad provides a powerful analysis of why the Cold War occurred, what it meant, and why it still matters. He is especially strong in elucidating the ideas of perfection that drove very imperfect, often brutal, leaders. Westad's book links the Cold War to globalization, recent wars in the Middle East, and American rivalries with Russia and China. This is a book that everyone interested in politics and foreign policy should read. It is a riveting story, told by one of the foremost world historians

—— Jeremi Suri, author of The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office

His ambitious book wrests attention away from the classic arenas of Moscow, Berlin and Washington, and looks instead at Indonesia, Chile, Angola, China and Korea, showing how the Cold War affected the globe and how it was, in turn, shaped by events in seemingly distant lands.

—— Herald Scotland

Ambitious, perspicacious and panoramic in scope

—— Financial Times

With a great eye for a story and a counterintuitive argument, Mark Forsyth has enormous fun breezing through 10,000 years of alcoholic history in a little more than 250 pages.

—— Henry Jeffreys , The Guardian

Well researched and recounted with excellent humour, Forsyth's alcohol-ridden tale is sure to reduce anyone to a stupor of amazement.

—— William Hartson , Daily Express

This charming book proved so engrossing that while reading it I accidentally drank two bottles of wine without realising.

—— Rob Temple, author of Very British Problems

Everything we ever thought about Christmas is wrong! Great stuff

—— Matthew Parris on 'A Christmas Cornucopia'

Mark Forsyth wears his considerable knowledge lightly. He also writes beautifully

—— David Marsh, on 'The Elements of Eloquence' , Guardian

This year's must-have stocking filler ... the essential addition to the library in the smallest room is Mark Forsyth's The Etymologicon

—— Ian Sansom , Guardian

Mark imparts knowledge about Christmas traditions from the essential to the (very) abstruse in wry and sardonic style. An effortless and enjoyable way to learn more about this fulcrum of our calendar

—— Paul Smiddy, Former Head of pan-European retail research, HSBC, on 'A Christmas Cornucopia'

With his casual elegance and melodious voice, Mark Forsyth has an anachronistic charm totally at odds with the 21st century

—— Sunday Times South Africa on'The Horologicon'

[The Etymologicon is] a perfect bit of stocking filler for the bookish member of the family, or just a cracking all-year-round-read. Highly recommended

—— The Spectator

A treat for the connoisseur who enjoys a robust anecdote from the past with his drink

—— Sumit Chakrabarti , The Telegraph, India

As good as promised - could have been thrice as long

—— Ben Schott, on 'The Elements of Eloquence'

Witty and revelatory. Blooming brilliant

—— Raymond Briggs on 'A Christmas Cornucopia'

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