Hope Lies in the Proles George Orell and the Left [Hardcover]

Few figures on the left are as widely heralded as George Orwell. Yet his actual politics are poorly understood.Hope Lies in the Prolescorrects that, offering a sympathetic yet critical account of Orwell’s often muddied political thinking and its continued relevance today. John Newsinger takes up various aspects of Orwell’s personal politics, exploring his attempts to change working-class consciousness, considering it alternately romantic, realistic, and patronizing—and at times all three at once. He examines Orwell’s antifascism, and how it fits in with his criticism of the Soviet Union; looks into his relationship with the Labour Party and feminism; and delves into Orwell’s shifting views on the United States. The result is the clearest understanding we’ve ever had of Orwell’s politics and their legacy.

John Newsingeris professor of modern history at Bath Spa University and the author of more than a dozen books.

List of Abbreviations
 
Introduction: Discovering Orwell
1. ‘Until They Become Conscious They Will Never Rebel’: Orwell and the Working Class
2. ‘Why I Join the ILP’: Orwell and the Left in the Thirties
3. ‘Giants are Vermin’: Orwell, Fascism and the Holocaust
4. ‘A Long Series of Thermidors’: Orwell, Pacifism and the Myth of the People’s War
5. ‘It is Astonishing How Little Change Has Happened’: Orwell, the Labour Party and the Attlee Government
6. ‘Ceaseless Espionage’: Orwell and the Secret States
7. ‘2+2=5’: Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, and the New Left
Conclusion: ‘Capitalism has manifestly no future’- Orwell Today
Notes
Index
 

“This book confirms John Newsinger’s status as one of our leading Orwell scholars. Clear, wide-ranging and bracingly polemical, it casts new light on lÃ$