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In the Cause of Labour: A History of the British Trade Unions, 1792 - 2003
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 3, 2022
Fundamental reading for any trade unionist - definitely needs a second edition!
April 12, 2026
This is a remarkable book that really caught me up to speed with British labour history, and connected together the disparate events that I knew about.
That said reading this after Rob Sewell's latest book In Defence of Lenin, you can tell that he has grown alot as a writer over the 23 years since writing In the Cause of Labour. It's still well written, but I would've struggled alot with this book if I was new to Marxism - as compared to Sewell's latest books including ones on more 'obscure' topics. It often switches between being very zoomed out, and then getting a little bogged in facts and details, and struggles to hit that sweet-spot between general and concrete that Sewell has mastered in his more recent books.
This is a criticism of the presentation and form, which is still in and of itself of a high level compared to most 'left' books. The political content could not be better. Only Marxism can properly explain the logic underlying the dizzying twists and turns in British history, and this book is still really illuminating.
It's interesting reading the Communists' perspectives for British politics in 2003 - a slow revival of the class struggle and an impending crisis in some way or another. You know what happens next.
As a little bit of an epilogue for myself, I rewatched The Communists Are Coming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhOCE... - the RCI's founding documentary featuring Rob Sewell. It begins with a whistle-stop tour of British and world politics ever since 2008.
5 years after In the Cause of Labour was written, the Financial Crash would trigger a brand new era in the class struggle - the era of the tuition fees protests and Corbyn's Labour, then the period of Brexit and a decade and a half of Tory austerity, then the period of Starmer's Labour, the genocide in Gaza, Polanski and Farage, and eventually if we crack on with our work, then the period of the Revolutionary Communist Party.
That said reading this after Rob Sewell's latest book In Defence of Lenin, you can tell that he has grown alot as a writer over the 23 years since writing In the Cause of Labour. It's still well written, but I would've struggled alot with this book if I was new to Marxism - as compared to Sewell's latest books including ones on more 'obscure' topics. It often switches between being very zoomed out, and then getting a little bogged in facts and details, and struggles to hit that sweet-spot between general and concrete that Sewell has mastered in his more recent books.
This is a criticism of the presentation and form, which is still in and of itself of a high level compared to most 'left' books. The political content could not be better. Only Marxism can properly explain the logic underlying the dizzying twists and turns in British history, and this book is still really illuminating.
It's interesting reading the Communists' perspectives for British politics in 2003 - a slow revival of the class struggle and an impending crisis in some way or another. You know what happens next.
As a little bit of an epilogue for myself, I rewatched The Communists Are Coming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhOCE... - the RCI's founding documentary featuring Rob Sewell. It begins with a whistle-stop tour of British and world politics ever since 2008.
5 years after In the Cause of Labour was written, the Financial Crash would trigger a brand new era in the class struggle - the era of the tuition fees protests and Corbyn's Labour, then the period of Brexit and a decade and a half of Tory austerity, then the period of Starmer's Labour, the genocide in Gaza, Polanski and Farage, and eventually if we crack on with our work, then the period of the Revolutionary Communist Party.
September 18, 2021
A must-read for anyone who wants to understand the buried history of the British working class. This book needs a second edition!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews