{"title":"Philip Bounds","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"orwell-and-marxism-book-philip-bounds-9781784537043","title":"Orwell and Marxism","description":"Whether as a fighter in the Spanish Civil War, an advocate of patriotic Socialism or a left-wing opponent of the Soviet Union, George Orwell was the ultimate outsider in politics - insecure, scornful of orthodoxies, cussedly independent.  Best known today as the author of Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell also wrote seven other full-length books and and a vast number of essays, articles and reviews. A pioneering cultural critic, he addressed a range of important issues including art, literature, 'Englishness', mass communication and the spectre of totalitarianism. Famously describing his own background as 'lower-upper-middle class', Orwell had a complex relationship with Marxism and all his work reflects the influence of British communism. In this thoughtful and original study Philip Bounds argues that Orwell’s writings effectively took the form of a dialogue with the leading British Marxists of his day. Bounds shows that Orwell often agreed with the Marxists and built on their insights in his writings, while on other occasions he used his disagreements with them as the basis of his own critical position.  Through close analysis of Orwell’s writings as well as his historical and literary context, Bounds has produced an important study of one of the iconic writers of the 20th century. 'Orwell and Marxism' offers a thorough introduction to Orwell the intellectual, reviving his reputation as a serious cultural thinker and documenting his most important influences, as well as a convincing portrait of British Marxism and society in the 1930s and 40s.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49580002410769,"sku":"GOR012971183","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1784537047.jpg?v=1750897946"},{"product_id":"notes-from-the-end-of-history-book-philip-bounds-9780850366112","title":"Notes from the End of History","description":"After the collapse of the Soviet Union it was widely believed that Marxists would be all but extinct by the year 2000. Humanity, wrote Francis Fukuyama, had come to the end of history. All thoughts of finding an alternative to capitalism could be forgotten. Such thinking was wide of the mark. So why did so many people retain a faith in Marxism after the disappearance of 'actually existing socialism'? Set largely in Wales but ranging widely across the recent history of the British left, Philip Bounds's memoir evokes an age in which Marxism faltered, came close to dying but made a dramatic recovery. It sheds new light on many of the most important political and cultural events of the 1980s and 1990s. Howard Moss of Swansea University has described it as 'a book full of lively and interesting characters who come alive on its pages via the eminently readable, nay gripping, style in which it is written.'  ('The joke in the department was that a bunch of daffodils had turned black and died when he bought them for a colleague as a retirement present.')","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50964412334353,"sku":"GOR010699540","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51268375478545,"sku":"GOR008271772","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0850366119.jpg?v=1751139404"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-philip-bounds.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}