Cracking Christmas reads

As we hurtle headlong into the season of conspicuous overconsumption and overworked livers, former Irish Democrat editor DAVID GRANVILLE delves into his library shelves and consults a few friends to come up with a list recent titles and radical classics to inform, educate, inspire and, at times, even amuse, whatever the season.

HAVING RECKLESSLY accepted the challenge to compile a list of books which every radical or revolutionary should read sometime during their lifetime, it wasn't until my desk started to groan under the piles of potential entries that the editor's cryptic reference to me having accepted a 'poisoned chalice' began to make sense.

Exactly how I was to turn these towering piles into a couple of tabloid pages was troubling from the onset. In the end, the answer was simple: I wasn't.

As a result, many worthy candidates - especially novels and other forms of literature — have unfortunately fallen by the wayside.

Like all such lists, what is left is an entirely subjective choice. It is a reflection of my own background, intellectual limitations and political outlook as an unrepentant English socialist republican, internationalist and friend of Ireland.

It's unlikely to be a list with which every reader will wholly agree. Indeed, I can already picture future letters' pages replete with expressions of disbelief and outrage at the inclusion of certain books or chiding my unreasonable omissions.

For those readers who feel particularly aggrieved, I apologise in advance and suggest you write in with some of your own recommendations.

As for those that finally made the cut, many are long-established classics. Others are from a more recent time, though I've deliberately avoided, with a few notable exceptions, books relating to the most recent phase of the conflict in the north.

THERE CAN hardly be a better starting post for any self-respecting radical or revolutionary than the works of the United Irish leader Theobald Wolfe Tone.

Tone's objective of securing Irish independence through revolutionary means and to unite the whole people of Ireland, 'Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter', under the common title of 'Irishmen' remains at the root of radical Irish republicanism.

Tone was the author of a number of important political tracts and essays, and was a prolific memoir, journal and letter writer.

The most important of these fortunately appear in one volume: Life of Theobald Wolfe Tone (Lilliput Press, 1998) edited by Thomas Bartlett, one of Ireland's leading authorities on the United Irishmen and the rebellion of 1798.

Bartlett also had a major hand in editing what must surely be regarded as the definitive collection of essays on the 1798 rebellion: 1798: A bicentenary Perspective (Four Courts Press, 2003). Sadly, it's only available in hardback.

Thomas Russell, a close friend of Tone's and a co-founder of the Society of United Irishmen in Belfast and Dublin, was both a brilliant and dedicated organiser. He was also one of the United Irishmen's most radical thinkers, helping to develop links between the society and working-class elements throughout the north of Ireland.

Although there are more recent studies of Russell, Denis Carroll's The Man From God Knows Where (Columba Press, 1995) remains my personal favourite, combining both erudition and readability.

Anyone who has had the good fortune to hear Ruan O'Donnell, another of Ireland's leading 1798 historians, speak on United Irishmen and enigmatic revolutionary Robert Emmet will find it no surprise that his recently published two-volume study (Robert Emmet and the Rebellion of 1798/Robert Emmet and the Rising of 1803, Irish Academic Press, 2003) is included here.

Using a welter of new research material, O'Donnell has rescued Emmet from the clutches of romantic nationalism, placing him firmly and convincingly in the league of dedicated and unflinching Irish revolutionaries.

Irish radicals developed significant links abroad, including in Britain, where the example and influence of the French Revolution had the ruling elite seriously worried - to put it mildly.

Of the many excellent books dealing with these developments, space constraints limit me to listing just two: The Making of the English Working Class by EP Thompson (Pelican Book, 1963) and The Scottish Insurrection of 1820 by Peter Berresford Ellis and Séamas Mac A' Ghobhainn (John Donald, 2001).

Although the great Irish labour leader James Connolly is, understandably, a much revered republican icon, largely resulting from his participation in the 1916 Rising, his importance as an Irish revolutionary goes far beyond his participation in Easter Week.

Connolly's historical and political overview, Labour in Irish History, is a seminal work by any standard. Of his other major works, the The Reconquest of Ireland, which proposes the need to marry the fight for political and economic emancipation with the struggle for national freedom, and Labour, Nationality and Religion, his response to a series of anti-socialist Lenten sermons, are both worthy of inclusion here.

Whether writing about the relationship between the struggles for Irish national liberation and socialism, equality of the sexes or the reactionary consequences of partition, much of Connolly's analysis remains incisive and, more importantly, politically relevant.

All of Connolly's major works, along with a considerable amount of his journalism, can be found in the two-volume Collected Works (New Books, 1988)

An excellent Selected Writings, edited by historian Peter Berresford Ellis, has also appeared in various paperback editions since the early 1970s (Monthly Review, Pelican and Pluto Press).

The Life and Times of James Connolly by Desmond Greaves (Lawrence and Wishart, 1961 pbk), James Connolly and the Irish Left by WK Anderson (Irish Academic Press, 1994 hbk) and James Connolly and the Reconquest of Ireland by Priscilla Metscher (University of Minnesota, 2002) are three important biographical and political studies.

There has been a tendency among certain sections of the Irish left to place artificial divisions between James Connolly and the other great labour leader of the era, Jim Larkin.

While it is true that their relationship was not always an easy one and that their personalities were very different, close analysis reveals that their political outlook on most of the big issues of the day was more often in tune that at odds.

Undoubtedly, the best collection of material on Larkin is to be found in James Larkin Lion of the Fold edited by Donal Nevin (Gill & Macmillan, 1998 pbk).

Another classic of Irish labour history is Peter Berresford Ellis' A History of the Irish Working Class (Victor Gollancz, 1972, Pluto Press, 1985), which is essentially a complementary work to Connolly's Labour in Irish History.

Berresford Ellis's highly accessible study begins with the era of Celtic 'communism' and ends with the first 15 years of the most recent phase of the conflict in the north.

Both Connolly and Berresford Ellis acknowledge the contribution to Ireland's radical and socialist tradition made by James Fintan Lalor. Unfortunately, Lalor's works had been out of print for many years until the appearance in 1999 of Collected Writings by and about James Fintan Lalor edited by Eva Guarino and Judith Turnbull (Edizioni Il Pontesonoro).

Quite why a small Italian publisher should need to be relied upon to ensure that Lalor's important contribution is once again available to Irish readers is both a matter for speculation and concern.

The Fenian Movement of the mid-19th and early 20th Centuries has an important place in the Irish radical and revolutionary tradition. Although I am aware of a number of excellent short studies, mostly focusing on Fenianism in Britain and including books by Paul Rose and John Newsinger, I am not aware of more in-depth studies.

Even so, Paul Rose's book The Manchester Martyrs: a Fenian tragedy (Lawrence and Wishart, 1970) and Irish Rebels in English Prisons by the Fenian Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa (Brandon, 1991) are both worthy contenders for inclusion here.

Flann Campbell's Dissenting Voices: Protestant democracy in Ulster from plantation to partition Campbell (Blackstaff Press, 1991), is another important work, which challenges the notion that Protestants have always formed a monolithic and reactionary bloc in Ireland and points the way to a rediscovery of their radical and revolutionary heritage.

The period culminating in the 1916 Rising and the Tan War and its tragic aftermath gave rise to large number of anti-imperialist classics — too many for them all to be included here.

Of those that made the final cut, Desmond Greaves' classic biography of the left-wing republican Liam Mellows: Liam Mellows and the Irish Revolution (Lawrence and Wishart, 1987) is a much undervalued treasure.

Ernie O'Malley's On Another Man's Wound (Anvil, revised edition 2002) and The Singing Flame (Anvil, 1979); Tom Barry's account of the exploits of the West Cork Flying column in the war of independence, Guerrilla Days in Ireland (Anvil, 1981), Dorothy Macardle's The Irish Republic (Wolfhound Press, 1999), all deserve their place.

The bad news is that Macardle's book is currently only available in hardback.

O'Malley undoubtedly ranks as one of modern republicanism's leading writer intellectuals and political activists. His participation in the struggle for independence and in the civil war meant that he was well placed to record these troubled times.

The writer, left-wing intellectual and political activist Peadar O'Donnell was another important figure on the republican left.

His three volumes of autobiography: The Gates Flew Open (Jonathan Cape 1932); Salud! An Irishman in Spain (Methuen, 1937) and There will be Another Day (Dolmen Press, 1963) deal with his imprisonment between 1922-24, his time in Spain at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War and his account of the land annuities campaign, in which he played a prominent part.

O'Donnell also provided the foreword to Seán Cronin's as yet unsurpassed study of the left-wing republican, anti-imperialist and International Brigader, Frank Ryan (Frank Ryan: the search for the Republic, Repsol-Skellig, 1980).

Both O'Donnell and Ryan were involved in left-wing republican initiatives during the 1930s, which were an attempt to link the struggles for national liberation and social oppression. Although these ultimately foundered, the account provided by another key participant, George Gilmore, The Irish Republican Congress (Cork Workers' Club, 1978) provides a lasting testament to their efforts.

Other key books also deal with Irish involvement in the Spanish Civil War. Even the Olives are Bleeding (New Island 1992), Joseph O'Connor's moving account of the short life Irish poet Charles Donnelly, who died defending the Spanish republic, and Michael O'Riordan's classic account of the Irish volunteers who fought on the republican side, The Connolly Column (New Books, 1979) are particularly important.

The autobiography of Spanish communist leader Dolores Ibarruri 'La Passionara', They Shall Not Pass (International Publishers, 1966) is another must. Broadcasting to the Spanish people on the opening day of the fascist rebellion, La Passionara issued the now-famous rallying call: "It is better to die on our feet than live on our knees. They Shall not pass!"

The tendency of Irish politicians and historians to overlook, downplay or simply ignore the role of women in the struggle for Irish freedom has begun to be addressed in recent years, in some quarters at least.

Three of the most important books to have appeared in recent years are:

Unmanageable Revolutionaries: Women and Irish Nationalism by Margaret Ward (Pluto Press 1995), which covers the period from the Ladies Land League to Cumann na mBann; Ruth Taillon's When History was Made: The Women of 1916 (Beyond the Pale, 1996): and

Rosemary Cullen Owens Smashing Times: A History of the Irish Suffrage Movement 1889-1922, which explores the suffragette movement's relationship with trade unionism, socialism and republicanism.

As I mentioned in my introduction, I have largely eschewed the modern period so far as the most recent phase of the conflict in the North is concerned.

However, a couple of books deserve a particular mention.

David Beresford's Ten Men Dead: the story of the 1981 Irish hunger strike (Grafton, 1987) is quite simply one of the best and most moving pieces of journalism that you're ever likely to come across.

It is heart-rending testament to the courage, resilience and bravery of the Hunger Strikers, whose struggle for political status was massively influential on the political development of modern republicanism.

For many outsiders, the first visible signs of these developments came with the publication in 1986 of Gerry Adams' The Politics of Irish Freedom (Brandon, 1986), making it also a suitable choice for inclusion here.

Two general, but very important, working-class histories of England and Ireland deserve a place on any putative revolutionary's bookshelf: A.L Morton's A People's History of England (Lawrence and Wishart, 1984) and TA Jackson's Ireland Her Own (Lawrence and Wishart, 1991). Unashamedly left-wing and English, their respective works offer a socialist perspective on the most important episodes of British history and on the struggle for Irish liberation up to partition, respectively.

Christopher Hill is another English socialist historian with particular relevance for Irish readers. This is particularly so given his universally acknowledged expertise on the English Civil War and the depredations visited upon the Irish by a certain Oliver Cromwell.

Hill's The World Turned Upside Down, which explores radical ideas during the English revolution (Pelican, 1975,) is both scholarly and highly readable.

Any list of this nature would be meaningless without Thomas Paine's Rights of Man and The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels.

It is difficult to underestimate the influence that these works alone have had on the development of democratic, radical and revolutionary thought across the globe since their publication in 1791 and 1848, respectively.

Of Paine's main works, Rights of Man (Penguin Classics) has undoubtedly had the greatest impact.

A vindication of the French Revolution and an excoriating critique of Britain's anti-democratic system of government, his explanation and support of the republican ideal became the catalyst for transforming the major thrust of radicalism throughout the English-speaking world from reform to revolution.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau's French revolutionary masterpiece A Social Contract also appears as a Penguin Classic.

An analysis of the relationship between liberty and law, freedom and justice, Rousseau's work opens with the famous line "Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains" and includes the famous democratic slogan 'Liberty, Equality and Fraternity'.

For a genuinely radical account of the French Revolution itself, look no further than George Rude's The French Revolution (Phoenix, 1994)

Despite communism's copious 'bad press' from the time of the Paris Commune onwards, The Communist Manifesto (Lawrence and Wishart and Penguin Classics), first published in 1848, remains one of the most lucid, inspiring and powerful political documents ever to have seen the light of day.

While clearly a creation of its time, and as such containing some obvious limitations, Marx and Engel's description of a class-based society continues to strike a chord with the daily experience of working people the world over and inspire radicals and revolutionaries across the globe.

Marx and Engels' recognition of the revolutionary impact of the bourgeois phase of capitalism and predictions of the ongoing trend towards monopolisation and the globalisation of capital have proved remarkably accurate. Unfortunately, they — and many more who followed — underestimated the resilience of the capitalist system.

Internationalism is a key component of any genuinely revolutionary outlook. Of the many possible candidates, I offer the following as a starting point:

The Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano (Monthly Review, 1973) is a brilliantly written account charting five centuries of pillage at the hands of European and US imperialism.

Columbus: his enterprise by Hans Konig (Monthly Review, 1976) explodes the myth that Christopher Columbus was a courageous and visionary hero by exposing the greed and cruelty at the real heart of the man and his mission.

Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution (Pathfinder, 1987) is a collection of the writings and speeches of the Argentinean revolutionary with Irish ancestry.

Though almost certainly out of print, Soledad Brother (Penguin, 1971) by George Jackson, an autobiographical account of imprisonment, political awakening and of the consequences of being black and working class in America, remains an inspiring revolutionary classic I cannot recommend too highly. Along with the autobiography of the singer, actor and political activist Paul Robeson, Here I Stand (Beacon Press, 1998) and Angela Davis' radical feminist study, Women, Race and Class (Women's Press, 1981), in which she argues that sexism and racism are deeply rooted in class oppression, Soledad Brother is one of the most important books to have come out of the black American experience.

Vietnam: anatomy of a war 1940-1975 by Gabriel Kolko stands out from other accounts of the conflict by virtue of its analysis of social and political developments that fuelled the Vietnamese revolution.

Noam Chomsky's The Fateful Triangle (Pluto Press, 1983) is a brilliant attempt to untangle the complex relationship between the United States, Israel and the Palestinians, a relationship that continues to lie at the heart of conflict and instability in the Middle East.

Based largely on the author's experience and study of the Algerian liberation movement's struggle for national independence, Franz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth (Penguin 20th Century Classics, 2001) is a genuine anti-imperialist classic. So too is How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney (Bogle L'Overture, 1978), which offers a radical black perspective on the part played by rapacious European colonialism in the underdevelopment of the African continent.

Culture and Imperialism by the recently-deceased Edward Said (Chatto and Windus, 1993), combines literary criticism and political analysis, demonstrating how imperialist powers have used culture just as effectively as they have used political and economic power in their efforts to dominate and oppress others.

For sheer uplifting inspiration, combined with political steadfastness in the face of adversity, all-round humanity and generosity of spirit, Nelson Mandela's autobiography Long Walk to Freedom (Abacus, 1995) takes some beating.

An essential collection of Mandela's writing prior to his lengthy imprisonment at the hands of Apartheid regime, No Easy Walk to Freedom, is also available as a Penguin Classic.

Having left myself precious little space for even a short selection of literature, I venture the following as nothing more than a tentative toe in the water:

In The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (Lawrence and Wishart/Flamingo), Irish worker-writer Robert Tressell uses the experiences of a group of housepainters to set out a convincing case for collective organisation against capitalist exploitation. The book is widely thought to have converted more people to socialism over than any other single text.

Germinal by Emile Zola (Penguin Classics) depicts the gritty reality of life in the mines of Northern France at the turn of the 20th Century. Although not a revolutionary, French miners lined Zola's funeral procession chanting "Germinal! Germinal!" as a mark of respect for the man who had brought their plight to the world stage.

John Steinbeck's classic, Grapes of Wrath (Penguin, 2002) charts the downward spiral of the Joad family's from small land-owning farmers to dispossessed migrants of the dust bowl, as they search for work during the economic depression of the 1930s.

Spartacus by Howard Fast (North Castle Books) is a fictional account of the slave revolt in the heart of the Roman Empire, which took place between 73-71 BC.

My final selection is a play by Sophocles, which was first produced in 441 BC. Antigone (Penguin Classics) is a political as well as literary masterpiece, which has stood the test of time as a classic exposition of the conflict between conscience and tyranny. What could be more appropriate.

Happy radical reading.

• For up to date information about availability and price I recommend the services of good bookseller or, for those with access to the internet, one of the many book-related websites. I have attempted to indicate where a book is currently out of print. All edition dates given are either the most recent available, where known, or the edition in my own collection.