Activist Histories

In India, my oral history has focussed on memories of Partition and of the origins of the Kashmir conflict. In Britain, the bulk of the interviews I have conducted have been with political activists of many different hues - though mainly on the left. I have compiled a list of the tapes which I have deposited at the British Library Sound Archive.

The drawing on the left is by Fermin Rocker and depicts his father, the anarchist Rudolf Rocker, addressing a political meeting. It features on the cover of Bill Fishman's East End Jewish Radicals, 1875-1914.

I interviewed Fermin for a radio programme about his father, and the audio of the programme is available on this site. The interviews deposited at the British Library include several with associates and followers of Rocker, including Nellie Dick and Leah Feldman.

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A selection of these oral history interviews and related material is available elsewhere on this site, including:

   - E.P. and Dorothy Thompson talking about their membership of the Communist party
   - a propaganda recording made by the British Communist leader Harry Pollitt in 1942