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Thursday's general election defeat for the Labour Party showed the limitations of Corbynism, and has lead to renewed debate on left strategy in Britain. In this article, Connor Woodman argues that only a focus on deep grassroots organising, alongside parliamentary struggle, can we hope to win future victories.

Peter Wollen, the pioneering film theorist and film maker, died on Tuesday 17th December at the age of 81. His books and essays transformed the way that cinema is written about in the English speaking world, particularly his 1969 work Signs and Meaning in the Cinema, which is often regarded as one of the most influential books on cinema ever written.
In celebration of his work, we're republishing his 2001 essay "An Alphabet of Cinema", originally published in New Left Review and included in the essay collection Paris Hollywood.

In this interview conducted by Didier Eribon, Raymond Williams discusses theories of culture, mass communication, the New Left, cultural studies, the sixties, dominant, residual, and emergent culture, the New Right, the working class, and cultural resistance to Thatcherism. 

For biography-lovers, a reading list that goes beyond Michelle Obama's Becoming to explore the lives of revolutionary figures from history.

Reading recommendations from Verso authors, including classics by W.E.B. Du Bois, a memoir of growing up along the US-Mexico border, revolutionary poetry, and a coffee table book on abortion.

A starting point for anyone sharing in our overwhelming sense of anger and despair, as well as those looking for inspiration from resistance movements and organising strategies.

Books, poems and magazines read and loved by the Verso staff in 2019

On December 8th of last year, seven year old Jakelin Caal Maquin died in Border Patrol custody. Her death came at the hands of Prevention Through Deterrence, a border security policy implemented under President Bill Clinton. 

In the run up to Thursday's general election, Jeremy Corbyn's popular agenda of modest social-democratic reforms was met with an unrelenting tide of hostility, from the both the British media and members of the political class. In this article Lorna Finlayson analyses the conditions of the defeat, and the egregious dereliction of duty of the media.

At the general election, the Labour party attempted to fight a deeply ingrained narrative about Brexit with appeals to economic interest. It offered “money in your pocket” in opposition to deeper values. It didn’t work. Thursday's defeat raises serious questions about the party's strategy and direction.

This time of year is a moment of deep reflection for Lakota people because of the anniversary of the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre. Below is an excerpt from Nick Estes' Our History is the Future, on the history of indigenous resistance.