Product Description

This is a study of the development of George Orwell's political ideas and beliefs from his time as a policeman in Burma through to the publication of "Nineteen Eighty Four". It places Orwell's thinking in historical context, examining his response to mass unemployment in 1930s Britain, to revolution in Spain, to the impact of the World War II and its aftermath. Orwell remained both an anti Stalinist and a socialist up until his death.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #387352 in Books
• Published on: 2001-10-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 190 pages

About the Author
JOHN NEWSINGER is Senior Lecturer in History at Bath Spa University College. He is the author of Fenianism in Mid-Victorian Britain and Dangerous Men: The SAS and Popular Culture, and the editor of Shaking the World: John Reed's Revolutionary Journalism.

Customer Reviews

Orwell reclaimed by the left
Orwell's Politics by John Newsinger moves the debate a critical step further. Taking the end of the Cold War as "an ideal context for a reassessment" of Orwell's political ideas, Newsinger gives us a map of Orwell's intellectual terrain, and deftly orientates the reader around the key Orwellian debates. He examines how Orwell's politics developed in a changing world, and extracts a through-line strung like a piano wire through volatile circumstances, warring ideologies and intellectual sleight of hand in the century that promised workers in the saddle. Newsinger's thesis is that, although Orwell's politics shifted throughout his lifetime, the one constant was his unwavering socialism. What detractors - and even some admirers - have missed is that he never ceased to write from within the left, attacking the betrayal of the revolution rather than the revolution itself.

Full review at:
http://www.annachen.co.uk/writing/orwell1.htm