Radicals in Conversation

Mussolini’s Grandchildren: Fascism in Contemporary Italy

Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia, or Brothers of Italy, emerged from the Italian general election earlier this week with around 26% of the vote. Although it has been a junior partner in previous coalition governments, this is the first time that the party, which traces its lineage back to Mussolini and the post-war fascism of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), has become the largest political force in the country.

Surging to prominence in recent years, Fratelli d’Italia has waged a fierce culture war against the Left, polarised political debate around World War II, and sought to redeem historical fascism, legitimise its political heirs and ultimately shift the terrain of mainstream politics to the right. Now poised to take power, many in the international community are asking how this has happened. 

We are joined on the show by David Broder, author of Mussolini’s Grandchildren: Fascism in Contemporary Italy, to analyse the situation in Italy in the wake of the election.

Mussolini's Grandchildren is published in March 2023. Pre-order it today through plutobooks.com. 

RIC in-haus: Neither Vertical nor Horizontal

Radicals in Conversation in-haus is a new podcast series collaboration between Pluto Press and Bookhaus, an independent bookshop in Bristol. RIC in-haus is recorded on location at Bookhaus. The bookshop’s ‘in-haus’ events programme features authors of some of the most exciting radical nonfiction being published today.

Episode 3 features Rodrigo Nunes, author of Neither Vertical nor Horizontal: A Theory of Political Organization (2021), in conversation with Birgân Gökmenoğlu, an Affiliated Research Fellow in the Department of Sociology at the London School of Economics. Their discussion covers topics including the climate crisis, leadership, network theory and the mobilisation of a rightwing political ecology around Roe v. Wade.

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Buy the book: bookhausbristol.com/shop

The U.S. Constitution v. Democracy

Recently, U.S. politics has appeared to be very much in a state of crisis. The last president was impeached by Congress, and stands accused of inciting an attempted coup in the January 2021 assault on the Capitol. What's more, in devastating acts of judicial review, The Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, throwing out the right to an abortion; and its June 30th ruling on West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency severely curtailed the EPA’s authority under a provision of the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. 

But rather than all this pointing to a dysfunctional, or even broken, politics, what we are witnessing is a political system working exactly as it was designed to. This is the position taken by Robert Ovetz in his eye-opening new book, We the Elites: Why the U.S. Constitution Serves the Few, in which he examines the constitution for what it is – a rulebook for elites to protect private property and capitalism from democracy. As Robert argues, social movements have misplaced faith in the constitution as a tool for achieving justice when it actually impedes social change through the many roadblocks and obstructions we call 'checks and balances'. This stymies progress on issues like labour rights, poverty, public health and the climate crisis, ultimately propelling the American people and rest of the world towards destruction.

Robert joins us on the show this month to talk about the Constitution - from the historical context in which it was written and what its authors set out to achieve; to the many myths and misconceptions that exist around it; to its legacy today, more than 230 years after its ratification.

We the Elites is out in September 2022. Podcast listeners can get 50% off the book via plutobooks.com - just use the coupon PODCAST at the checkout.

RIC in-haus: Reclaiming Antiracism

Radicals in Conversation in-haus is a new podcast series collaboration between Pluto Press and Bookhaus, an independent bookshop in Bristol. RIC in-haus is recorded on location at Bookhaus. The bookshop’s ‘in-haus’ events programme features authors of some of the most exciting radical nonfiction being published today.

Episode two features Azfar Shafi and Ilyas Nagdee, co-authors of Race to the Bottom: Reclaiming Antiracism, which was published last month in our Outspoken by Pluto series. Chairing the conversation is Nayya Raza from Bookhaus. They discuss the history of antiracist organising in Britain, from the Black Power movement and the 1981 uprisings, to the emergence of an ‘antiracism from above’ orientated around issues of visibility and inclusion. They also talk about theorising race and racism, the history of policing, and the challenges and opportunities the antiracist movement faces today.

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Buy the book: bookhausbristol.com/shop

From Carcerality to Abolitionism

This month we are joined on the panel by Françoise Vergès, author of A Feminist Theory of Violence and A Decolonial Feminism, and Aviah Sarah Day and Shanice Octavia McBean, co-authors of the forthcoming book, Abolition Revolution. 

Our discussion focuses on the connections between carceral feminism, racial capitalism and the structural violence perpetrated by the state. We also talk about the political journey of Sisters Uncut, abolitionism, and formulating alternative approaches to questions of protection and justice that reject the logic and infrastructure of carcerality.

RIC in-haus: The Ethical Stripper

Radicals in Conversation in-haus is a new podcast series collaboration between Pluto Press and Bookhaus, an independent bookshop in Bristol. RIC in-haus is recorded on location at Bookhaus. The bookshop's 'in-haus' events programme features authors of some of the most exciting political nonfiction currently being published.

In episode 1, Stacey Clare, author of The Ethical Stripper, is in conversation with Amélie from the Bristol Sex Workers Collective. They talk about why many strippers are identifying with the sex worker label; how workers in the industry are organising through the United Voices of the World (UVW) union; and the challenges they face, from both the mainstream feminist movement, and workplace closures in the wake of the pandemic.

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Buy the book: bookhausbristol.com/shop

Find out more about the Bristol Sex Workers Collective: bristolswc.com

United Sex Workers crowdfunder: gofundme.com/f/urgent-save-our-strip-clubs-our-workplaces?qid=86f5dfe976298d7352f579429c37af7a

Tangled in Terror: Uprooting Islamophobia

Islamophobia is everywhere. It is a narrative and history woven so deeply into our everyday lives that we don't even notice it – in our education, how we travel, our healthcare, legal system and at work. Behind the scenes it affects the most vulnerable, at the border and in prisons. Despite this, the conversation about Islamophobia is relegated to microaggressions and slurs. At best, we see it as an individual moral failing to be condemned – though amongst the political elite, Islamophobia is more likely to enhance, than hinder careers...

In Tangled in Terror: Uprooting Islamophobia, Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan scrutinises not just what Islamophobia is, but what it does. Islamophobia not only lives under the skin of those who it marks, but is an international political project designed to divide people in the name of security, in order to materially benefit global stakeholders.

We're joined on the show by Suhaiymah to talk about a number of the issues covered in the new book, and to get her thoughts as well on the popular podcast, The Trojan Horse Affair, and the discourse that has emerged around the refugee crisis caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Trespass, the Commons and the Right to Roam

In England today there exist nearly 120,000 miles of public footpath - half what it was 100 years ago and amounting to just 8% of the land in the country. Of England’s 42,000 miles of rivers, we have access to just 3%.

The enclosure of common land, and the exclusion of the people who lived upon it, was a violent process that began almost a thousand years ago, and reached its zenith in the 18th and 19th centuries. This ‘accumulation by dispossession', as David Harvey has put it, was frequently met with rebellion, but nonetheless continues to shape the landscape around us today.

The story of the loss of the commons and the emergence of private property is not just of historical interest. Today a third of Britain is still owned by the aristocracy, and the rights of the land owner to do what they please with their land are paramount. Property remains inextricably linked to power.

We're joined on the show this month by Nick Hayes, author of The Book of Trespass: Crossing the Lines that Divide Us (2020), and a co-founder of the Right to Roam campaign. We discuss the history of the commons and enclosure, and delve into the power of trespassing as a form of direct action.

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Find out more about the campaign: righttoroam.org.uk

Black History Month: Curated Highlights

To celebrate Black History Month in the US, we've gone through the Radicals in Conversation archive and curated a series of extracts in which our panellists discuss different aspects of Black history in America.

Extract 1: Episode 26 (December 2019) - Bill Mullen and Megan Williams discuss the evolution of the radical politics of James Baldwin, as it was expressed in his writing and in his activism as a public intellectual.

Extract 2: Episode 45 (August 2021) - Farah Thompson and Jules Joanne Gleeson talk about transgender experiences, race and organising in contemporary America.

Extract 3: Episode 49 (December 2021) - Lorenzo Kom’Boa Ervin and William C. Anderson speak to JoNina Ervin about Black Anarchism in a collaboration with the Black Autonomy Podcast.

Extract 4: The New Intellectuals Episode 1 (April 2020) - Jordan Camp interviews Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor for The New Intellectuals - a series produced in collaboration with The People’s Forum. They talk about the history of Black home ownership in the twentieth century.

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30% off our Black Reading List for Black History Month: plutobooks.com/black-history-month-reading-list/

Public Health After Covid: A New Radical Blueprint

Almost two years into the Covid-19 pandemic, and the limits of a neoliberal public health orthodoxy have been well and truly exposed. But instead of pushing for radical change, the left in Britain finds itself stuck in a rearguard action focused on defending the National Health Service (NHS) from the wrecking ball of privatisation.

In January 2022, Pluto published The Five Health Frontiers: A New Radical Blueprint, in which public health expert Christopher Thomas argues that we must emerge from the pandemic on the offensive - with a bold, new vision for our health and social care. He maps out five new frontiers for public health and imagines how we can move beyond safeguarding what we have, towards a revitalisation and radical expansion of the principles put forward by Aneurin Bevan, the founder of the NHS, over 70 years ago.

Beyond recalibrating our approach to healthcare, this radical blueprint calls for a fundamental redesign of our economy through 'Public Health Net Zero'; a bold new universal public health service that is fit to address the real causes of ill health; and a major recalibration in the efforts against the epidemiological reality of an era of pandemics.

Joining us on the panel are:

Christopher Thomas, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) and author of The Five Health Frontiers;
Dr Sonia Adesara, an NHS doctor and campaigner