In 1993 prisoners took control of the maximum-security prison in Lucasville, Ohio. Their 11-day ordeal started with a dispute between the warden and Muslim prisoners and ended with a negotiated settlement, but only after nine prisoners and one hostage had been killed. In the months that followed, leaders of the uprising were singled out by the state, tried, and sentenced to death despite compelling evidence of their innocence. Lucasville tells the inside story of the uprising, the subsequent trial and sentencing. Eminent historian and lawyer Staughton Lynd brings the full power of evidence to bear as he retells the Lucasville story. He argues compellingly that the five men sentenced to death have been unfairly convicted. In addition, he describes the uprising from the inside-how the prisoners worked together, black and white, even Muslims and members of the Aryan Brotherhood, for the improvement of conditions. The ease with which the state has been able to use its resources, and the court's, to bring the Lucasville 5 to the point of execution raises questions that will make readers want to rethink not only the justification for these convictions, but the legitimacy of the death penalty in any case.

Marcus Garvey is one of the great figures of the 20th century. He proved by his life's work the potency of the racial factor in contemporary politics. With little aid from the geneticists, sociologists, anthropoligists or historians Garvey asserted the principle of racial equality, especially of Negro and African equality while claiming due respect for the African past. 

In the past five years Israel has mounted three major assaults on the 1.8 million Palestinians trapped behind its blockade of the Gaza Strip. Taken together, Operation Cast Lead (2008-9), Operation Pillar of Defense (2012), and Operation Protective Edge (2014), have resulted in the deaths of some 3,700 Palestinians. Meanwhile, a total of 90 Israelis were killed in the invasions.

On the face of it, this succession of vastly disproportionate attacks has often seemed frenzied and pathological. Senior Israeli politicians have not discouraged such perceptions, indeed they have actively encouraged them. After the 2008-9 assault Israel’s then-foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, boasted, “Israel demonstrated real hooliganism during the course of the recent operation, which I demanded.”

However, as Norman G. Finkelstein sets out in this concise, paradigm-shifting new book, a closer examination of Israel’s motives reveals a state whose repeated recourse to savage war is far from irrational. Rather, Israel’s attacks have been designed to sabotage the possibility of a compromise peace with the Palestinians, even on terms that are favorable to it.

Looking also at machinations around the 2009 UN sponsored Goldstone report and Turkey’s forlorn attempt to seek redress in the UN for the killing of its citizens in the 2010 attack on the Gaza freedom flotilla, Finkelstein documents how Israel has repeatedly eluded accountability for what are now widely recognized as war crimes.

Further, he shows that, though neither side can claim clear victory in these conflicts, the ensuing stalemate remains much more tolerable for Israelis than for the beleaguered citizens of Gaza. A strategy of mass non-violent protest might, he contends, hold more promise for a Palestinian victory than military resistance, however brave.

Known as the “Grand Old Man of India”, Dadabhai Naoroji was Britain’s first Asian member of Parliament. This book charts his life from humble beginnings in Bombay, to the laying of the foundations of modern India. Even though he was a mentor to men such as Gandhi, his story is relatively unknown.

This book serves to re-live his life story so that the work he undertook both in India and in Britain can once again be appreciated.

James Baldwin's breakthrough essay collection made him the voice of his generation. Ranging over Harlem in the 1940s, movies, novels, his preacher father and his experiences of Paris, they capture the complexity of black life at the dawn of the civil rights movement with effervescent wit and prophetic wisdom.

'A classic ... In a divided America, James Baldwin's fiery critiques reverberate anew' Washington Post

'Edgy and provocative, entertainingly satirical' Robert McCrum, Guardian

'Cemented his reputation as a cultural seer ... Notes of a Native Son endures as his defining work, and his greatest' Time

'Indispensable . . . Speaks of hope and courage' Observer

'An ode to openness, offering a refreshing alternative to those accounts that treat migrants as faceless statistics' David Lammy MP

'A highly informed and eloquent account of life in a modern British city during a period of globalisation, austerity and mass migration' Patrick Cockburn, Independent

Race and migration are the most prominent and divisive issues in British politics today.

As Brexit and the dangers of Islamist extremism are being used to reassert a closed British identity, these stories – of fifty migrants, first and second generations; men and women; from thirteen different countries from Ireland to India, Pakistan to Poland, the Caribbean to Somalia – highlight the variety of migrant experience and offer an antidote to the fear-mongering of the tabloid press.

This positive story of integration is all too rarely told, and it offers a firm defence of the principles of equality and increased diversity. Our City shows why mixed, open societies are the way forward for twenty-first-century cities, and how migrants help modern Britain not only survive but prosper.

"I think this is one of the most important books ever done about the South... Tony Dunbar has documented what many students of the South have proclaimed: the fact that poor white people and poor black people, though separated and alienated from each other through history, have identical economic and political interests, and essentially the same set of enemies - a society which has neglected their basic needs." - Patt Watters

Women's lives in Wales are changing dramatically. They are becoming increasingly important to the world of paid work, while retaining their roles and responsibilities in the home. The pattern of family life has shifted, to the much vaunted growth of single parents, and the increase of elderly women living alone. Many women are increasingly active in public life, but meet barriers to their success, whether the arena be returning to study as mature students, the church, business, the arts or literature: they are expected to fit into a male world. Women's lives are very diverse, and their changing identity as they manage the balance between private and public lives has been as yet realtively uncharted. This text brings together a collection of interdisciplinary research papers on the changing identity of women in Wales. Research findings are complemented by cameo "voices" - personal accounts by a variety of individual women living and working in Wales. The volume is illustrated with photographs especially commissioned from the photographer Mary Giles.

The widely criticised Police and Criminal Evidence Bill would have given the police unprecedented new powers on the streets and in police stations. Although the Bill fell when the 1983 General Election was called, a new Bill is being reintroduced by the government. This book analyses the issues behind the Bill, and the argument that the new powers are needed not to detect crime, but to enable the police to act as a repressive mechanism of social control. The effect will be to legitimise policing by coercion.  

Reminiscences of a Jamaican woman, born in the 1930's, who emigrated to London in th 1960's.