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Tariq Ali: A Leading Figure of the International Left

Featuring beautiful new editions of Tariq Ali's Islam Quintet.

10 February 2026

Books by Tariq Ali

Tariq Ali has been a leading figure of the international left since the 60s. From the student movement in Pakistan to the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign, from Trotsky to Malcolm X, from Lenin to Lennon, his works have had a seismic and global influence on leftist thought.

Here he discusses the Islam Quintet, a series of novels written across twenty years that challenge easy assumptions about Islamic history held both by Islamophobes, and by those within the Islamic world.

The Islam Quintet

Ali's acclaimed series of five novels form an epic panorama that begins in 15th century Moorish Spain, and closes in the 21st century cities of Lahore, London, Paris and Beijing. These historical novels examine the encounters among Muslims, Christians, and Jews through the ages, from the Crusades to twenty-first-century London.

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Memoir

Exploring everything from the revolutionary upsurge of the 1960s to the present moment we find ourselves in, Ali's memoirs paint a portrait of life on the Left.

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Theory

Including an insightful portrait of Lenin’s deepest preoccupations, an essential critique of Obamaism, and a discussion of the future of socialist politics in Britain.

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Internationalism

Ali maintains an international perspective in his work, writing on the War on Terror, the unending occupation of Kashmir, and the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela.

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  • Who's Afraid of Margaret Thatcher?
    Ken Livingstone is a product of the political changes that have already taken place in the Labour Party. As Leader of the Greater London Council he has provided a voice and a vision for tens of tho...
    Paperback
  • The Obama Syndrome
    Written early in 2010 and initially published in September 2010, The Obama Syndrome predicted the Obama administration’s historic midterm defeat. But unlike myriad commentators who have since pinne...
    Paperback

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  • Rough Music
    On July 7, 2005, the murderous mayhem that Blair’s war has sown in Iraq came home to London in a devastating series of suicide bombings. Two weeks later, with apparent impunity, security forces sho...
    Paperback
  • Bush in Babylon
    The assault and capture of Iraq—and the resistance it has provoked—will shape the politics of the twenty-first century. In this passionate and provocative book, Tariq Ali provides a history of Iraq...
    Paperback
  • The Clash of Fundamentalisms
    The aerial attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, a global spectacle of unprecedented dimensions, generated an enormous volume of commentary. The inviolability of the American mainland...
    Paperback
  • Kashmir
    Kashmir is one of the most protracted and bloody occupations in the world—and one of the most ignored. Under an Indian military rule that, at half a million strong, exceeds the total number of US f...
    Paperback
  • Pirates of the Caribbean
    The Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela has brought Hugo Chávez to world attention as the foremost challenger of the neoliberal consensus and American foreign policy. Drawing on first-hand experienc...
    Paperback
  • Uprising in Pakistan
    The story of what happened in 1968 in Pakistan is often forgotten, but is yet another proof that the revolutionary moment was global. In that year, following a long period of tumult, a radical coal...
    Paperback

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