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Orwell and Politics
Including Animal Farm
'Orwell is the most influential political writer of the twentieth century' New York Review of Books
Throughout his life George Orwell aimed, in his words, to make 'political writing into an art'. This collection brings together the best of his matchless political essays and journalism with his timeless satire on totalitarianism, Animal Farm . It includes articles on subjects from the corruption of language to the oppressive British Empire; his masterly wartime Socialist polemic, 'The Lion and the Unicorn'; a wry review of Mein Kampf ; a defence of Nineteen Eighty-Four ; and extracts from his controversial list of 'Crypto-Communists'. Together these works demonstrate Orwell's commitment to telling the truth, however unpalatable, and doing so with artistry and humanity.
Edited by Peter Davison with an Introduction by Timothy Garton Ash
'Orwell is the most influential political writer of the twentieth century' New York Review of Books
Throughout his life George Orwell aimed, in his words, to make 'political writing into an art'. This collection brings together the best of his matchless political essays and journalism with his timeless satire on totalitarianism, Animal Farm . It includes articles on subjects from the corruption of language to the oppressive British Empire; his masterly wartime Socialist polemic, 'The Lion and the Unicorn'; a wry review of Mein Kampf ; a defence of Nineteen Eighty-Four ; and extracts from his controversial list of 'Crypto-Communists'. Together these works demonstrate Orwell's commitment to telling the truth, however unpalatable, and doing so with artistry and humanity.
Edited by Peter Davison with an Introduction by Timothy Garton Ash
- GenresPoliticsNonfictionEssays
560 pages, Paperback
First published May 3, 2001
19 people are currently reading
415 people want to read
About the author
George Orwell
1,258 books50.5k followersEric Arthur Blair was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to all totalitarianism (both fascism and stalinism), and support of democratic socialism.
Orwell is best known for his allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), although his works also encompass literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. His non-fiction works, including The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), documenting his experience of working-class life in the industrial north of England, and Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences soldiering for the Republican faction of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), are as critically respected as his essays on politics, literature, language and culture.
Orwell's work remains influential in popular culture and in political culture, and the adjective "Orwellian"—describing totalitarian and authoritarian social practices—is part of the English language, like many of his neologisms, such as "Big Brother", "Thought Police", "Room 101", "Newspeak", "memory hole", "doublethink", and "thoughtcrime". In 2008, The Times named Orwell the second-greatest British writer since 1945.
Orwell is best known for his allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), although his works also encompass literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. His non-fiction works, including The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), documenting his experience of working-class life in the industrial north of England, and Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences soldiering for the Republican faction of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), are as critically respected as his essays on politics, literature, language and culture.
Orwell's work remains influential in popular culture and in political culture, and the adjective "Orwellian"—describing totalitarian and authoritarian social practices—is part of the English language, like many of his neologisms, such as "Big Brother", "Thought Police", "Room 101", "Newspeak", "memory hole", "doublethink", and "thoughtcrime". In 2008, The Times named Orwell the second-greatest British writer since 1945.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 14, 2021
“Orwell and Politics” is an unusual book for me because instead of a standalone work it is a curated collection of letters, essays, reviews, and excerpts, with Animal Farm thrown in for good measure. It wasn’t hard to read at all, both because it was excellently curated and Orwell is an amazing writer. Orwell may be the most lucid political writer I’ve ever read. That and his sincere confrontation of reality are why he is still so beneficial to read.
Not everything in the collection is solid gold, but a surprising amount of it is. For example, there is a very intriguing review of “Mein Kampf” Orwell wrote in 1940. In this review he contemplates the question “How was it that [Hitler] was able to put this monstrous vision across?” Orwell believes that there is something very appealing in Hitler that enabled him to assume dictatorial power in Germany. It is partially that Hitler effectively poses himself as “Prometheus chained to the rock, the self-sacrificing hero who fights single-handed against impossible odds”. One line Orwell writes of Hitler strikes me as axiomatic of all demagogues: “If he were killing a mouse he would know how to make it seem like a dragon”. Another reason Hitler appeals to so many is that he rejected what Orwell identified as the progressive belief that “human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security, and avoidance of pain”. “However they may be as economic theories,” Orwell argues, “Fascism and Nazism are psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life.”
Another fascinating gem is an essay in which Orwell persuasively argues that it is actually a blessing that the Soviet Union went to war with Germany after England already had. His reasoning is that prior to all the conquest of France and attacks on England, the Soviet Union was perceived by many in England to be the bigger threat of the two. If the English people had been compelled to choose between Germany and the Soviet Union in 1935, then there would have grown a substantial pro-Hitler movement that would have caused major problems mobilizing against Germany.
I have been trying to land on a coherent definition (or even concept) of Fascism for years. It appears to be beyond question among contemporary non-conservatives that Fascism is baked into the policies, platforms, and worldview of conservatives. Neither I nor any fellow conservatives I am aware of see this in ourselves, but I accept that this may be the equivalent of our rivals informing us that we have a boogie or that our fly is unzipped (an act of courtesy, one might say). Fortunately for me, Orwell took this matter up decades ago as a part of an article(?) “As I Please”. He begins by identifying that while “Fascism” is broadly understood when it is referring to Hitler’s Germany or Mussolini’s Italy, its character becomes nebulous when used in any other specific instance. To demonstrate this, Orwell lists all the groups that he has seen accused of Fascism and the basis for those accusations. This list illustratively includes Conservatives, Socialists, Communists, Trotskyists, Catholics, Nationalists, those who oppose the War, and those who support the War. Orwell concludes that the nearest practical definition we have of “Fascist” is simply “bully”. However, since we know that “Fascism” is also a political and economic system that we just cannot properly articulate, “[a]ll one can do for the moment is to use the word with a certain amount of circumspection and not, as is usually done, degrade it to the level of a swearword.”
Animal Farm is just awesome. I thought it was just going to be heavy-handed metaphor for totalitarianism generally, but it is instead simply the history of the Russian Revolution told with animals. It occurred to me that it is almost more suited for a history class than a political theory class because it is so specific. But then I remembered with sadness that it isn’t so specific after all.
I believe that in addition to his obvious talents and insights, Orwell eclipses all other anti-totalitarian writers in academia because he criticizes it from the left instead of from the right. Orwell cleaves a border between Socialism and Communism/Totalitarianism such that all the historical evils lie neatly on one side and the other remains pure. This is not a criticism of Orwell but rather the way he is used by many to protect Socialism from criticisms from the right.
The Lion and the Unicorn
The largest essay in the collection is The Lion and the Unicorn, which is essentially Orwell’s call for the rise of Socialism in England. Written during The Blitz, it has probably the most awesome opening line of any essay: “As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead trying to kill me.” In his analysis of the political and economic lessons of the War, Orwell interprets the successful military mobilization of the Third Reich as wholly demonstrating the inferiority of private capitalism to a centrally-planned economy. He likens a planned economy to a superior technological innovation that is only forsworn by those who resist change for its own sake. Although the Soviet Union would have embarrassed this thesis, the People’s Republic of China is thus far solid evidence in its favor.
Orwell’s Socialism is not government ownership of everything and the abolishment of all private property, but is rather limited to (1) government control of the “means of production” which includes factories, mines, etc. and (2) “approximate” equality of incomes. In this essay, his definition of fascism appears to be simply the worst of all economic systems: essentially capitalism but with government control of the means to make it efficient for war production. (He delves into Fascism elsewhere with more useful insight) Orwell differentiates between the underlying principle of socialism as human equality and fascism as human inequality. A college professor that I greatly respect uses this essay disappointingly to assert the exact same differentiation between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. It’s easy to see why left-leaning intellectuals are so commonly lured into projecting contemporary politics onto the past as a timeless duality of conservatism and progressivism. Unfortunately, the tendentious temptation to draw some thread between Fascism and/or Nazism and modern conservatism and claim that this thread, far from being a fragile and solitary connection, is instead the foundation upon which each rest must be overwhelming because it is so common among progressives for whom the moral high ground is the only thoughtful aspect of their ideology. But I digress.
Orwell is in this essay imagining how a proper socialist movement could succeed in England. It isn’t framed as inevitable but it is framed as absolutely necessary to win the war. Much of Orwell’s explanation of how a socialist movement could succeed in England isn’t simply strategy but a description of the form and composition it must have in order to succeed. “It will never lose touch with the tradition of compromise and the belief of a law that is above the state… It will retain a vague reverence for the Christian moral code, and from time to time will refer to England as ‘a Christian country’.” It is apparent that Orwell’s advice to maintain that vague reverence doesn’t come from any sincere feelings on his part but rather as a tactic to prevent the alienation of Christians.
I lost count very early on of how many of Orwell’s observations are still accurate today. For example, “The creed [Communists] were spreading could appeal only to a rather rare type person, found chiefly in middle-class intelligentsia, the type who has ceased to love his own country but still feels the need of patriotism, and therefore develops patriotic sentiments towards Russia.” The condition and failures of a Socialist movement in England as Orwell laments them are entirely consistent with the frustrations of several far left-leaning friends of mine. (I sometimes wonder how I can call someone friend who desires that the government to take my property and govern me like a royal subject, but fortunately human bonds of affection are durable enough). Orwell says that the failed British Socialist Movement had “frightened away whole classes of necessary people…Only the intellectuals, the least useful section of the middle class, gravitated towards [it]”. Elsewhere, Orwell criticizes English Socialists who “have wanted to make a stand against Fascism, but at the same time they have aimed at making their own countrymen unwarlike.” It almost seems like a major difference between Socialists and Communists as we know them is their respective denial or embrace of violence.
It is easy to see the pragmatism underlying Orwell’s approach to politics in this essay. Acknowledging that Socialism will never achieve its lofty goals, Orwell declares that “[n]o political programme is ever carried out in its entirety.” If English Socialists are to succeed, Orwell says, “[i]t will not be doctrinaire, nor even logical….It will leave anachronisms and loose ends everywhere, the judge in his ridiculous horsehair wig and the lion and the unicorn on the soldier’s cap-buttons.”
Not everything in the collection is solid gold, but a surprising amount of it is. For example, there is a very intriguing review of “Mein Kampf” Orwell wrote in 1940. In this review he contemplates the question “How was it that [Hitler] was able to put this monstrous vision across?” Orwell believes that there is something very appealing in Hitler that enabled him to assume dictatorial power in Germany. It is partially that Hitler effectively poses himself as “Prometheus chained to the rock, the self-sacrificing hero who fights single-handed against impossible odds”. One line Orwell writes of Hitler strikes me as axiomatic of all demagogues: “If he were killing a mouse he would know how to make it seem like a dragon”. Another reason Hitler appeals to so many is that he rejected what Orwell identified as the progressive belief that “human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security, and avoidance of pain”. “However they may be as economic theories,” Orwell argues, “Fascism and Nazism are psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life.”
Another fascinating gem is an essay in which Orwell persuasively argues that it is actually a blessing that the Soviet Union went to war with Germany after England already had. His reasoning is that prior to all the conquest of France and attacks on England, the Soviet Union was perceived by many in England to be the bigger threat of the two. If the English people had been compelled to choose between Germany and the Soviet Union in 1935, then there would have grown a substantial pro-Hitler movement that would have caused major problems mobilizing against Germany.
I have been trying to land on a coherent definition (or even concept) of Fascism for years. It appears to be beyond question among contemporary non-conservatives that Fascism is baked into the policies, platforms, and worldview of conservatives. Neither I nor any fellow conservatives I am aware of see this in ourselves, but I accept that this may be the equivalent of our rivals informing us that we have a boogie or that our fly is unzipped (an act of courtesy, one might say). Fortunately for me, Orwell took this matter up decades ago as a part of an article(?) “As I Please”. He begins by identifying that while “Fascism” is broadly understood when it is referring to Hitler’s Germany or Mussolini’s Italy, its character becomes nebulous when used in any other specific instance. To demonstrate this, Orwell lists all the groups that he has seen accused of Fascism and the basis for those accusations. This list illustratively includes Conservatives, Socialists, Communists, Trotskyists, Catholics, Nationalists, those who oppose the War, and those who support the War. Orwell concludes that the nearest practical definition we have of “Fascist” is simply “bully”. However, since we know that “Fascism” is also a political and economic system that we just cannot properly articulate, “[a]ll one can do for the moment is to use the word with a certain amount of circumspection and not, as is usually done, degrade it to the level of a swearword.”
Animal Farm is just awesome. I thought it was just going to be heavy-handed metaphor for totalitarianism generally, but it is instead simply the history of the Russian Revolution told with animals. It occurred to me that it is almost more suited for a history class than a political theory class because it is so specific. But then I remembered with sadness that it isn’t so specific after all.
I believe that in addition to his obvious talents and insights, Orwell eclipses all other anti-totalitarian writers in academia because he criticizes it from the left instead of from the right. Orwell cleaves a border between Socialism and Communism/Totalitarianism such that all the historical evils lie neatly on one side and the other remains pure. This is not a criticism of Orwell but rather the way he is used by many to protect Socialism from criticisms from the right.
The Lion and the Unicorn
The largest essay in the collection is The Lion and the Unicorn, which is essentially Orwell’s call for the rise of Socialism in England. Written during The Blitz, it has probably the most awesome opening line of any essay: “As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead trying to kill me.” In his analysis of the political and economic lessons of the War, Orwell interprets the successful military mobilization of the Third Reich as wholly demonstrating the inferiority of private capitalism to a centrally-planned economy. He likens a planned economy to a superior technological innovation that is only forsworn by those who resist change for its own sake. Although the Soviet Union would have embarrassed this thesis, the People’s Republic of China is thus far solid evidence in its favor.
Orwell’s Socialism is not government ownership of everything and the abolishment of all private property, but is rather limited to (1) government control of the “means of production” which includes factories, mines, etc. and (2) “approximate” equality of incomes. In this essay, his definition of fascism appears to be simply the worst of all economic systems: essentially capitalism but with government control of the means to make it efficient for war production. (He delves into Fascism elsewhere with more useful insight) Orwell differentiates between the underlying principle of socialism as human equality and fascism as human inequality. A college professor that I greatly respect uses this essay disappointingly to assert the exact same differentiation between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. It’s easy to see why left-leaning intellectuals are so commonly lured into projecting contemporary politics onto the past as a timeless duality of conservatism and progressivism. Unfortunately, the tendentious temptation to draw some thread between Fascism and/or Nazism and modern conservatism and claim that this thread, far from being a fragile and solitary connection, is instead the foundation upon which each rest must be overwhelming because it is so common among progressives for whom the moral high ground is the only thoughtful aspect of their ideology. But I digress.
Orwell is in this essay imagining how a proper socialist movement could succeed in England. It isn’t framed as inevitable but it is framed as absolutely necessary to win the war. Much of Orwell’s explanation of how a socialist movement could succeed in England isn’t simply strategy but a description of the form and composition it must have in order to succeed. “It will never lose touch with the tradition of compromise and the belief of a law that is above the state… It will retain a vague reverence for the Christian moral code, and from time to time will refer to England as ‘a Christian country’.” It is apparent that Orwell’s advice to maintain that vague reverence doesn’t come from any sincere feelings on his part but rather as a tactic to prevent the alienation of Christians.
I lost count very early on of how many of Orwell’s observations are still accurate today. For example, “The creed [Communists] were spreading could appeal only to a rather rare type person, found chiefly in middle-class intelligentsia, the type who has ceased to love his own country but still feels the need of patriotism, and therefore develops patriotic sentiments towards Russia.” The condition and failures of a Socialist movement in England as Orwell laments them are entirely consistent with the frustrations of several far left-leaning friends of mine. (I sometimes wonder how I can call someone friend who desires that the government to take my property and govern me like a royal subject, but fortunately human bonds of affection are durable enough). Orwell says that the failed British Socialist Movement had “frightened away whole classes of necessary people…Only the intellectuals, the least useful section of the middle class, gravitated towards [it]”. Elsewhere, Orwell criticizes English Socialists who “have wanted to make a stand against Fascism, but at the same time they have aimed at making their own countrymen unwarlike.” It almost seems like a major difference between Socialists and Communists as we know them is their respective denial or embrace of violence.
It is easy to see the pragmatism underlying Orwell’s approach to politics in this essay. Acknowledging that Socialism will never achieve its lofty goals, Orwell declares that “[n]o political programme is ever carried out in its entirety.” If English Socialists are to succeed, Orwell says, “[i]t will not be doctrinaire, nor even logical….It will leave anachronisms and loose ends everywhere, the judge in his ridiculous horsehair wig and the lion and the unicorn on the soldier’s cap-buttons.”
December 22, 2016
Introduction
Editorial Note
Acknowledgements
--'How a Nation Is Exploited: The British Empire in Burma', Le Progrès Civique, 4 May 1929
--'A Hanging', The Adelphi, August 1931
--Review: Alec Brown, The Fate of the Middle Classes, May 1936
--Review: Mark Channing, Indian Mosaic, 15 July 1936
--'Shooting an Elephant', New Writing, 2, Autumn 1936
--Review: Fenner Brockway, Workers' Front, 17 February 1938
--Anonymous review: Maurice Collis, Trials in Burma, 9 March 1938
--Letter to the Editor, 'Ends and Means', New English Weekly, 26 May 1938
--Review: Eugene Lyons, Assignment in Utopia, 9 June 1938
--'Why I Join the I.L.P.', New Leader, 24 June 1938
--Review: Franz Borkenau, The Communist International, 22 September 1938
--Extract from Letter from Eileen Blair to Marjorie Dakin, 27 September 1938
--Manifesto: If War Comes, We Shall Resist, New Leader, 30 September 1938
--Extract from Letter from Marjorie Dakin to Eileen Blair and Orwell, 3 October 1938
--Letter to John Sceats, 24 November 1938
--Letter to Charles Doran, 26 November 1938
--'Political Reflections on the Crisis', The Adelphi, December 1938
--Review: N. de Basily, Russia under Soviet Rule, 12 January 1939
--Review: F. J. Sheed, Communism and Man, 27 January 1939
--Letter to Herbert Read, 5 March 1939
--Review: Clarence K. Streit, Union Now, July 1939
--Extracts from Orwell's 'Diary of Events Leading Up to the War', 2 July--3 September 1939
--Application to Enrol for War Service, 9 September 1939
--Review: Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 21 March 1940
--Extracts from Orwell's 'War-time Diary', 28 May--20 June 1940
--Review: Jack London, The Iron Heel; H. G. Wells, Then the Sleeper Wakes; Aldous Huxley, Brave New World; Ernest Bramah, The Secret of the League, 12 July 1940
--Review: The English Revolution: 1640, edited by Christopher Hill, 24 August 1940
--Extracts from London Letter to Partisan Review (Current political situation), 3 January 1941
--The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius, 19 February 1941
--Part II: Shopkeepers at War
--Part III: The English Revolution
--Extract from London Letter to Partisan Review (Support for Labour leaders; preservation of democracy in wartime), 15 April 1941
--Extract from London Letter to Partisan Review, 'The Anglo-Soviet Alliance', 17 August 1941
--Review: Louis Fischer, Men and Politics, Christmas 1941
--Sir Stafford Cripps's Mission to India, March-April 1942
--Extract from BBC Weekly News Review for India, 14, 14 March 1942
--Extracts from War-time Diary, 1, 3 and 10 April 1942
--Extract from BBC Weekly News Review for India, 18, 18 April 1942
--Extracts from War-time Diary, 18 and 29 April 1942
--London Letter to Partisan Review, 'The British Crisis', 8 May 1942
--Extracts from War-time Diary, 7 June and 12 August 1942
--Letter to Tom Wintringham, 17 August 1942
--Review: Mulk Raj Anand, Letters on India, 19 March 1943
--London Letter to Partisan Review (Dissolution of the comintern; growth of the Common Wealth Party: c. 23 May 1943)
--'Literature and the Left', Tribune, 4 June 1943
--'Gandhi in Mayfair'. Review of Lionel Fielden, Beggar My Neighbour, September 1943
--Letter from Roy Walker to Orwell, 28 September 1943
--Review: Harold J. Laski, Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time, 10 October 1943
--'Who Are the War Criminals?' Review of 'Cassius', The Trial of Mussolini, 22 October 1943
--Review: Henry Noel Brailsford, Subject India, 20 November 1943
--Extract from 'As I Please', 4 (On dissociating Socialism from Utopianism), Tribune, 24 December 1943
--Extract from London Letter to Partisan Review (Parliament and the monarchy), 15 January 1944
--Review: James Burnham, The Machiavellians, 20 January 1944
--Completion of Animal Farm
--Publication of Animal Farm, 17 August 1945
--Animal Farm
--'As I Please', 17 (What is Fascism?), Tribune, 24 March 1944
--Review: Louis Fischer, Empire, 13 May 1944
--'Benefit of Clergy: Some Notes on Salvador Dali', intended for The Saturday Book, 4, 1944
--Conclusion to letter to John Middleton Murry, 5 August 1944
--Review: Selections from the Works of Gerrard Winstanley, edited by Leonard Hamilton, 3 September 1944
--Review: Beverley Nichols, Verdict on India, 29 October 1944
--Review: Conrad Heiden, Der Führer, 4 January 1945
--Extract from 'As I Please', 56 (On European freedom), Tribune, 26 January 1945
--Extract from 'As I Please', 59 (Future of Burma), Tribune, 16 February 1945
--Extract from 'Occupation's Effect on French Outlook' (Post-liberation killings in France), Observer, 4 March 1945
--'Notes on Nationalism', Polemic, October 1945
--Unpublished Letter to Tribune (Trial of sixteen Poles in Moscow), 'Polish Trial', 26? June 1945
--'The Prevention of Literature', Polemic, January 1946
--'Freedom of the Park', Tribune, 7 December 1945
--'Politics and the English Language', Horizon, April 1946
--'Freedom and Happiness', Tribune, 4 January 1946
--The Intellectual Revolt, four articles, Manchester Evening News
--1. 'The Intellectual Revolt', 24 January 1946
--2. 'What is Socialism?', 31 January 1946
--3. 'The Christian Reformers', 7 February 1946
--4. 'Pacifism and Progress', 14 February 1946
--Afterword (translated from German of Neue Auslese), April 1946
--Extract from letter to Arthur Koestler, 5 March 1946
--'Do Our Colonies Pay?', Tribune, 8 March 1946
--'Some Thoughts on the Common Toad', Tribune, 12 April 1946
--Unsigned Editorial (On defending intellectual decency), Polemic, 3, May 1946
--'Why I Write', Gangrel, Summer 1946
--Extract from 'As I Please', 61 (Attitudes to immigrants), Tribune, 15 November 1946
--Extract from 'As I Please', 68 (Class distinction), Tribune, 3 January 1947
--Extract from 'As I Please', 70 (Attitudes to Poles in Scotland), Tribune, 24 January 1947
--Extract from 'As I Please', 73 (Scottish Nationalism), Tribune, 14 February 1947
--'Toward European Unity', Partisan Review, July--August 1947
--'Marx and Russia', Observer, 15 February 1948
--'Writers and Leviathan', Politics and Letters, Summer 1948
--Review: Jean-Paul Sartre, Portrait of the Anti-Semite, 7 November 1948
--'Reflections on Gandhi', Partisan Review, January 1949
--Orwell's Statement on Nineteen Eighty-Four, July 1949
--Extracts from Orwell's List of Crypto-Communists and Fellow-Travellers
--Extracts from Orwell's Pamphlet Collection Catalogue
Further Reading
Selective Index
Editorial Note
Acknowledgements
--'How a Nation Is Exploited: The British Empire in Burma', Le Progrès Civique, 4 May 1929
--'A Hanging', The Adelphi, August 1931
--Review: Alec Brown, The Fate of the Middle Classes, May 1936
--Review: Mark Channing, Indian Mosaic, 15 July 1936
--'Shooting an Elephant', New Writing, 2, Autumn 1936
--Review: Fenner Brockway, Workers' Front, 17 February 1938
--Anonymous review: Maurice Collis, Trials in Burma, 9 March 1938
--Letter to the Editor, 'Ends and Means', New English Weekly, 26 May 1938
--Review: Eugene Lyons, Assignment in Utopia, 9 June 1938
--'Why I Join the I.L.P.', New Leader, 24 June 1938
--Review: Franz Borkenau, The Communist International, 22 September 1938
--Extract from Letter from Eileen Blair to Marjorie Dakin, 27 September 1938
--Manifesto: If War Comes, We Shall Resist, New Leader, 30 September 1938
--Extract from Letter from Marjorie Dakin to Eileen Blair and Orwell, 3 October 1938
--Letter to John Sceats, 24 November 1938
--Letter to Charles Doran, 26 November 1938
--'Political Reflections on the Crisis', The Adelphi, December 1938
--Review: N. de Basily, Russia under Soviet Rule, 12 January 1939
--Review: F. J. Sheed, Communism and Man, 27 January 1939
--Letter to Herbert Read, 5 March 1939
--Review: Clarence K. Streit, Union Now, July 1939
--Extracts from Orwell's 'Diary of Events Leading Up to the War', 2 July--3 September 1939
--Application to Enrol for War Service, 9 September 1939
--Review: Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 21 March 1940
--Extracts from Orwell's 'War-time Diary', 28 May--20 June 1940
--Review: Jack London, The Iron Heel; H. G. Wells, Then the Sleeper Wakes; Aldous Huxley, Brave New World; Ernest Bramah, The Secret of the League, 12 July 1940
--Review: The English Revolution: 1640, edited by Christopher Hill, 24 August 1940
--Extracts from London Letter to Partisan Review (Current political situation), 3 January 1941
--The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius, 19 February 1941
--Part II: Shopkeepers at War
--Part III: The English Revolution
--Extract from London Letter to Partisan Review (Support for Labour leaders; preservation of democracy in wartime), 15 April 1941
--Extract from London Letter to Partisan Review, 'The Anglo-Soviet Alliance', 17 August 1941
--Review: Louis Fischer, Men and Politics, Christmas 1941
--Sir Stafford Cripps's Mission to India, March-April 1942
--Extract from BBC Weekly News Review for India, 14, 14 March 1942
--Extracts from War-time Diary, 1, 3 and 10 April 1942
--Extract from BBC Weekly News Review for India, 18, 18 April 1942
--Extracts from War-time Diary, 18 and 29 April 1942
--London Letter to Partisan Review, 'The British Crisis', 8 May 1942
--Extracts from War-time Diary, 7 June and 12 August 1942
--Letter to Tom Wintringham, 17 August 1942
--Review: Mulk Raj Anand, Letters on India, 19 March 1943
--London Letter to Partisan Review (Dissolution of the comintern; growth of the Common Wealth Party: c. 23 May 1943)
--'Literature and the Left', Tribune, 4 June 1943
--'Gandhi in Mayfair'. Review of Lionel Fielden, Beggar My Neighbour, September 1943
--Letter from Roy Walker to Orwell, 28 September 1943
--Review: Harold J. Laski, Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time, 10 October 1943
--'Who Are the War Criminals?' Review of 'Cassius', The Trial of Mussolini, 22 October 1943
--Review: Henry Noel Brailsford, Subject India, 20 November 1943
--Extract from 'As I Please', 4 (On dissociating Socialism from Utopianism), Tribune, 24 December 1943
--Extract from London Letter to Partisan Review (Parliament and the monarchy), 15 January 1944
--Review: James Burnham, The Machiavellians, 20 January 1944
--Completion of Animal Farm
--Publication of Animal Farm, 17 August 1945
--Animal Farm
--'As I Please', 17 (What is Fascism?), Tribune, 24 March 1944
--Review: Louis Fischer, Empire, 13 May 1944
--'Benefit of Clergy: Some Notes on Salvador Dali', intended for The Saturday Book, 4, 1944
--Conclusion to letter to John Middleton Murry, 5 August 1944
--Review: Selections from the Works of Gerrard Winstanley, edited by Leonard Hamilton, 3 September 1944
--Review: Beverley Nichols, Verdict on India, 29 October 1944
--Review: Conrad Heiden, Der Führer, 4 January 1945
--Extract from 'As I Please', 56 (On European freedom), Tribune, 26 January 1945
--Extract from 'As I Please', 59 (Future of Burma), Tribune, 16 February 1945
--Extract from 'Occupation's Effect on French Outlook' (Post-liberation killings in France), Observer, 4 March 1945
--'Notes on Nationalism', Polemic, October 1945
--Unpublished Letter to Tribune (Trial of sixteen Poles in Moscow), 'Polish Trial', 26? June 1945
--'The Prevention of Literature', Polemic, January 1946
--'Freedom of the Park', Tribune, 7 December 1945
--'Politics and the English Language', Horizon, April 1946
--'Freedom and Happiness', Tribune, 4 January 1946
--The Intellectual Revolt, four articles, Manchester Evening News
--1. 'The Intellectual Revolt', 24 January 1946
--2. 'What is Socialism?', 31 January 1946
--3. 'The Christian Reformers', 7 February 1946
--4. 'Pacifism and Progress', 14 February 1946
--Afterword (translated from German of Neue Auslese), April 1946
--Extract from letter to Arthur Koestler, 5 March 1946
--'Do Our Colonies Pay?', Tribune, 8 March 1946
--'Some Thoughts on the Common Toad', Tribune, 12 April 1946
--Unsigned Editorial (On defending intellectual decency), Polemic, 3, May 1946
--'Why I Write', Gangrel, Summer 1946
--Extract from 'As I Please', 61 (Attitudes to immigrants), Tribune, 15 November 1946
--Extract from 'As I Please', 68 (Class distinction), Tribune, 3 January 1947
--Extract from 'As I Please', 70 (Attitudes to Poles in Scotland), Tribune, 24 January 1947
--Extract from 'As I Please', 73 (Scottish Nationalism), Tribune, 14 February 1947
--'Toward European Unity', Partisan Review, July--August 1947
--'Marx and Russia', Observer, 15 February 1948
--'Writers and Leviathan', Politics and Letters, Summer 1948
--Review: Jean-Paul Sartre, Portrait of the Anti-Semite, 7 November 1948
--'Reflections on Gandhi', Partisan Review, January 1949
--Orwell's Statement on Nineteen Eighty-Four, July 1949
--Extracts from Orwell's List of Crypto-Communists and Fellow-Travellers
--Extracts from Orwell's Pamphlet Collection Catalogue
Further Reading
Selective Index
September 25, 2021
Great collection of essays, letters, books and other material dealing with the politics of the 1930s and 1940s through Orwell’s eyes. I thought I knew about all this but Orwell brings a contemporaneous perspective to issues such as Russia, Germany, Stalin, Hitler, The Blitz, Communism, Socialism, Fascism, Churchill, Moseley, India, Antisemitism, Imperialism, Gandhi, Dickens and European Integration. Scrupulously honest he attacks totalitarianism of all kinds, pouring scorn on those who support the USSR without acknowledging its faults and on apologists for Hitler alike. He points out that things are never absolute and that art, especially writing is not bad merely because one disagrees with it. Whilst the language and some of the attitudes are of a bygone age the values of decency, honesty, fairness, shine through. Small glimpses and hints of ideas that will later find expression in 1984 tantalise throughout. The discussion on European integration as necessary for socialism and as a balance to USSR and the USA together with loss of Empire has important messages for the late 2010s
Love the book and love the format of letters and short articles providing biographical and political context to the novels and longer essays. Nevertheless I found this hard going at times, picking my way through the various articles and many helpful footnotes. Persistence however paid off!
Love the book and love the format of letters and short articles providing biographical and political context to the novels and longer essays. Nevertheless I found this hard going at times, picking my way through the various articles and many helpful footnotes. Persistence however paid off!
October 10, 2012
I always love reading Orwell. His essays in this book are great. I am going to read more critical essays of his on literature like the ones on Dickens, Kipling, ect. The only complaint about this book is very small font size it makes my eyes bleed. However, still 5 stars.
February 15, 2025
This book is basically everything an Orwell fan could want. It almost feels like a DVD boxset collection back in the day when such a thing was in vogue: not only do you get various Orwell essays, including the famous ones such as "Shooting an Elephant" but also rarities such as his shocking review of "Mein Kampf" in which he bravely, unfashionably (in today's language) admits to finding Hitler's personality appealing, or at least understanding why so many Germans fell under his dreadful hypnosis (after the discovery of the Final Solution, far more un-ambiguous would come into vogue when discussing too, and wisely too, considering the Nazi c*nt Kanye's recent admission). There's also Animal Farm INCLUDED IN FULL which feels like this is frankly spoiling us. Oh, stop.
December 11, 2013
Orwell's politics, letters and reviews, plus Animal Farm slap bang in the centre. Orwell's writing is, as ever, first class. From an historical perspective, this is a good book, a point of view from a writer at the top of his game, commenting on the relations between UK and India, his diary excerpts relating to the run up of WW2, commentary on Russia and of course, socialism. As a political manual, it is rather dated and, with the benefit of hindsight, a little naive at times.
August 5, 2014
Orwell's true genius lies in his ability to dissect politics and society. Visionary, Bold, Cutting, and fearless in his criticism of the deserving.
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