Live Working or Die Fighting

Oct 18, 2024 6:24 AM

Author:Paul Mason

Globalisation has created a whole new working class - and they are reliving stories that were first played out a century ago. In Live Working or Die Fighting, Paul Mason tells the story of this new working class alongside the epic history of the global labour movement, from its formation in the factories of the 1800s through its near destruction by fascism in the 1930s and up to today's anti-globalisation movement.

Blending exhilarating historical narrative with reportage from today's front line, he links the lives of 19th-century factory girls with the lives of teenagers in a giant Chinese mobile phone factory; he tells the story of how mass trade unions were born in London's Docklands - and how they're being reinvented by the migrant cleaners in skyscrapers that stand on the very same spot.

It is a story of urban slums, self-help co-operatives, choirs and brass bands, free love and self-education by candlelight. And, as the author shows, in the developing industrial economies of the world it is still with us. Live Working or Die Fighting celebrates a common history of defiance, idealism and self-sacrifice, one as alive and active today as it was two hundred years ago. It is a unique and inspirational book.

Reviews

Vividly accessible... required reading for the Seattle brigade

—— Guardian

Mason, using an impressive range of primary sources, recounts nine of the great stories of working-class revolts

—— Irish Times

This book tells stories of our past that are indispensable to understanding the present. it is a good answer to all who ask where the working class has gone. Brilliant

—— Ken Loach

'Don't die stupid. If you haven't read Mason's book, you know nothing about how this planet works... breathtaking, fascinating, perceptive... Damn, I wish I'd written this book

—— Greg Palast, author of the New York Times bestseller Armed Madhouse

This is micro-historical writing at its best

—— Walden Bello, author of Dilemmas of Domination

Mason brings together a wealth of inspiring stories of workers' struggles of the past with accounts of workers' fights today

—— Socialist Review

It has taken a mere 2,700 years for archaeology to reveal Homer as a truly talented historian, not just a peddler of second hand myths. Contrary to age-old academic prejudice, finds since 1988 have confirmed that the Trojan War happened much as Homer - the Iron Age writer with an inspired grasp of Bronze Age culture - related it. Homer's heroes remain mythical, but so much else is spot-on that Barry Strauss extends the benefit of the doubt by re-telling The Iliad in his own chattily lyrical style as if Achilles & Co were as real as the other proven evidence. Cracking book ...

—— The Daily Telegraph

In this gripping reconstruction [Strauss] deploys an impressive array of archaeological, historical and linguistic evidence...

—— Mail on Sunday

A gripping account

—— Adam Forrest , The Herald

DeGroot tells the story of the American lunar mission with verve and elegance

—— Richard Aldous , Irish Times

Fascinating, gossipy and occasionally hilarious

—— Jeffrey Taylor , Express

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