List Containing Books Don't Let My Past Be Your Future: A Call to Arms
| Title | : | Don't Let My Past Be Your Future: A Call to Arms |
| Author | : | Harry Leslie Smith |
| Book Format | : | Kindle Edition |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 240 pages |
| Published | : | September 14th 2017 by Constable |
| Categories | : | History. Nonfiction. Politics. Autobiography. Memoir. Biography |
Interpretation To Books Don't Let My Past Be Your Future: A Call to Arms
'Harry Leslie Smith is a vital and powerful voice speaking across generations about the struggle for a just society' Jeremy Corbyn
THIS A CALL TO ARMS FOR THE MANY, NOT THE FEW: DON'T LET THE PAST BECOME OUR FUTURE
Harry Leslie Smith is a great British stalwart. A survivor of the Great Depression, a Second World War veteran, a lifelong Labour supporter and a proud Yorkshire man, Harry's life has straddled two centuries. As a young man, he witnessed a country in crisis with no healthcare, no relief for the poor, and a huge economic gulf between the North and South. Now in his nineties, Harry wanders through the streets of his youth and wonders whether anything has actually changed.
Britain is at its most dangerous juncture since Harry's youth - the NHS and social housing are in crisis, whilst Brexit and an unpopular government continue to divide the country - but there is hope. Just as Clement Attlee provided hope in 1945, Labour's triumphant comeback of June 2017 is a beacon of light in this season of discontent. Britain has overcome adversity before and will do so again - a new nation will be forged from the ashes of grave injustice.
Moving and passionate, Don't Let My Past be Your Future interweaves memoir and polemic in a call to arms. Above all, this book is a homage to the boundless grace and resilience of the human spirit.
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Rating Containing Books Don't Let My Past Be Your Future: A Call to Arms
Ratings: 4.36 From 157 Users | 29 ReviewsWeigh Up Containing Books Don't Let My Past Be Your Future: A Call to Arms
A powerful and compelling memoir that makes the case for social investment as opposed to economic austerity and neoliberalism. The author, Harry Leslie Smith, was well into his nineties when he wrote this book, which concludes with a powerful call to action: "Right now, we are at a juncture in history that is as dangerous to this generation as the 1930s were to mine. There are serious threats of war emerging all across the globe, some caused by the folly of neoliberalism and others just eruptingWhile the message here is wonderful, the book takes a little too long getting to the meat of comparing what happened before and after World War 2 to what is happening now. The author instead gets a little too caught up with raging on about the modern politicians at first. But once he gets down to the actual comparisons of past and present, his arguments shine and the real substances of this book shines through. It just takes a few chapters to get their.
Important, heart rending and necessary.
Important, heart rending and necessary.
My grandparents' and great-grandparents' past .... Almost every word of it, including the near-instinctive racism and xenophobia of so-called middle England. Perhaps my children's future ? Only one question. Why didn't I read this book sooner ? An enforced gap in a usually overloaded schedule gave me time for the luxury of reading from beginning to end.
Part memoir and part political essay, this 94 year old author, tells of the punishing poverty he grew up in Britain during the 1930's-1940's during the Great Depression; and before the rise of the Labour Party and the introduction of social services and universal health care in 1945. He laments about the dismantling of such services through austerity measures introduced by the British Tory party since Margaret Thatcher's days at the helm and which has continued since. He tells of a crisis of
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