SPOKESMAN BOOKS - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Chairman
- Director
- Mike Cooley
- the Myth of the Moral Neutrality of Technology
Michael Cooley was born in Tuam in the west of Ireland in 1934. He was educated at local Catholic schools and later studied engineering in the UK. In industry he specialised in engineering design and gained a PhD in computer-aided design.
Mike Cooley was national president of the Designers' Union in 1971 and a TUC delegate for many years. A design engineer for eighteen years, he was a founder member of the Lucas Aerospace Combine Shop Stewards' Committee and one of the authors of its Plan for Socially Useful Production.
He has lectured at universities in Australia, Europe and the United States. He has been a guest professor at the University of Bremen, and visiting professor at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. He has written for a variety of publications world wide including the Guardian, the Listener and the New Statesman. He has produced over forty scientific papers and is author or joint author of eleven books in English and German and has contributed to some thirty-five more. His work has been translated into over twenty languages from Finnish to Japanese. He is an international authority on human-centred computer-based systems and in 1981 was joint winner of the $50,000 Alternative Nobel Prize, which he donated to the Lucas Combine Committee.
Mike Cooley has been chairman and director of several manufacturing companies in his capacity as director of technology of the Greater London Enterprise Board in the 1980s.
His book, Arhcitect or Bee? The Human Price of Technology was re-published in 2016 and Delinquent Genius: The Strange Affair of Man and His Technology, written in 2008, was published in 2018 by Spokesman.
"The thrust of Mike Cooley's human society focused analysis has a striking parallel in the rapidly growing world-wide movement - led by young people - against climate change and for radical, green policies in all the major aspects of our economic, social and individual lives to counteract it. It is a development profoundly welcomed by him as the climate change threat to our planet and its people looms ever larger. In a sustainable world economy, the values and goals of Michael Cooley's work on human centred technology are sure to be reflected."
Job Titles:
- Spokesman Journal / Spokesman Classics
This latest volume in the Trevor Griffiths series contains all eleven episodes of the celebrated 1976 Thames TV series Bill Brand, which was the fictional account of a young left-wing Labour MP entering Parliament for the first time and attempting to influence the policies of his largely right-wing Labour government.
The series was conceived on election night in 1974, written and produced over the following two years and transmitted in 1976. This was a time of great political and industrial unrest in Britain; it produced the first minority government (under Harold Wilson) since 1931, and Bill Brand was watched with extreme interest by both the political classes and the wider population. At times it seemed almost uncannily prophetic; and many of the issues it dealt with remain of great contemporary relevance.
The series starred Jack Shepherd as Bill Brand, Arthur Lowe as the Prime Minister, Alan Badel, Peter Howell, Lynne Farleigh, Cherie Lunghi and many other distinguished actors.
Bill Brand has never been shown again, nor is it at present available commercially on dvd. This book is therefore a unique record of a unique television event.
Michael Barratt Brown sets each chapter of his long and eventful life, from the 1920s to 2013, within the frame of world events. Thus, after childhood and youth, at the end of one world war and the start of another, he writes about his service in a Quaker Ambulance Unit. There followed work for the United Nations and, subsequently, in documentary films, in workers' education, in industrial democracy, in socialist economics, in resisting nuclear warfare, in honest academic research, and in Fair Trade among co-operative organisations. In so doing, the author recalls something of the places, people, family and friends with whom he has been seeking to find a way to live a decent life, and to help others to do the same. Not always successful in these endeavours, he has nevertheless found wonderful love and friendships, as Seekers makes clear.
A courageous and exhilarating book, Michael Barratt Brown provides a remarkably honest narrative of his struggles both to live a good life on his own account and to improve the lot of others 'from below upwards' through his work in adult education and Fair Trade. Michael seems to have known almost everyone who mattered. As a child in 1930, he sat on Gandhi's knee. The stories of his loves and friendships give the reader a fascinating insight into the networks of the 20th century intellectual Left.
In this discussion on the shifting balance between the power of capital and labour in Britain, Michael Barratt Brown charts the redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich under New Labour.
In this pamphlet Michael Barratt Brown critically examines Prof. Anthony Giddens's Fabian Pamphlet 'Where Now for New Labour?' Giddens's stated aim is to defend New Labour, and the Third Way, against its critics, with a wholesale onslaught on 'old Labour'. Barratt Brown looks in detail at what Giddens means by 'old Labour', and exposes these 'myths of the left'. He then assesses New Labour's embrace of the private sector in providing public services and the role of business in government. "In regard to the major aim of reducing inequalities in Britain, Giddens is entirely complacent about New Labour ... " writes Barratt Brown, who cites the relevant statistics on widening income gaps between rich and poor.
As soon as he could, at the age of seventeen, Robert Hinde volunteered for the RAF. After a frustratingly long period of training, he was assigned to Coastal Command, where he became a pilot flying Catalina and then Sunderland flying boats.
Upon his release in January 1946 he went to St. John's College, Cambridge to read Natural Sciences (Zoology). He then went to Oxford (Balliol College and the Zoology Department), where he did field work towards a D. Phil. under the guidance of David Lack and the newly arrived Niko Tinbergen. In 1950 he returned to St. John's College and the Zoology Department in Cambridge, where he helped William Thorpe establish an Ornithological Field Station (later named the Sub-Department of Animal Behaviour) in Madingley. Robert was awarded a Royal Society Research Professorship in 1963, and he set up an MRC Unit on the Development & Integration of Behaviour in 1971. From 1989-1994 he was Master of St. John's College, Cambridge.
After the war, Robert became heavily involved in peace movements, particularly the Movement for the Abolition of War and the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs.
Nottingham author, Joy James, recalls her part in the celebrated BBC adaptation of Sons and Lovers
Joyce Chumbley is a researcher, writer, activist. For over three decades, she has been involved in education, the arts, and progressive environmental, social, and political issue from her base in Florida.
Job Titles:
- Department of Economics / Harvard University
Job Titles:
- Editorial
- Inge Genefke & Bent Sorenson - Torture Is a Crime
Leo Zonneveld is an author and editor. He served the United Kingdom government, as high technology specialist and lastly as science attaché at the British Embassy in The Hague, for 37 years.
Our good comrade and friend, Michael, died in London on 7 May after several weeks in hospital following a fall at home. During his long and eventful life, he worked closely with the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation and the Institute for Workers' Control, and was a regular contributor to The Spokesman journal. We shall miss him greatly.
Michael Barratt Brown wrote extensively throughout his life on economics, workers' control and politics. During his long career he served in a Quaker Ambulance Unit and worked for the United Nations and, subsequently, in documentary films, in workers' education, in industrial democracy, in socialist economics, in resisting nuclear warfare, in honest academic research, and in Fair Trade among co-operative organisations.
Michael Barratt Brown brings alive the struggles for socialism, and for peace and justice, in the 20th century with fascinating and sometimes very funny stories of everyone that a 21st century radical socialist would want to meet, plus a few that you will be glad to have missed! As important is that, through his stories and reflections, Michael conveys powerfully the potential of a transformative, radically democratic and feminist tradition which has long existed on the Left across Europe. During much of Michael's amazing life, this tradition was marginalised. We need to draw on it now to inspire the alternatives that are so urgent today. So Seekers is a valuable resource as well as a riveting read.
The Mandelson resignation revealed some of the close personal connections of the man himself and other Ministers with wealthy businessmen and women. In this little book Michael Barratt Brown reveals, with much detailed evidence, that this is but a tip of the iceberg. Beneath the surface there is a massive bonding between New Labour and Big Business, British and American.
Mike Cooley has an international reputation as an activist, engineer and academic. He received the Right Livelihood Award (‘Alternative Nobel Prize') ‘for designing and promoting the theory and practice of human-centred, socially useful production'. He was centrally involved in developing ‘The Lucas Plan' and has been a guest professor at universities throughout the world, debating and lecturing in German and English. His previous work, Architect or Bee?, has been translated into six languages, most recently Chinese.
Robert A. Hinde CBE FRS FBA (26 October 1923 - 23 December 2016) was an RAF pilot in World War Two before training as a biologist. He subsequently carried out research in biology and the human sciences. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, the British Academy, the Royal College of Psychiatry, the US National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He served as Master of St. John's College, Cambridge. Professor Hinde received awards for research in Anthropology, Developmental Psychology, Social Psychology, Psychiatry, Ethology, Primatology, and Zoology.
Professor Hinde was heavily involved in peace movements, particularly the Movement for the Abolition of War and the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs.
Robert A. Hinde was a Coastal Command Pilot, flying Catalinas and Sunderlands, in World War Two. After the war he workeded as a biologist/psychologist at Cambridge University. He was appointed a Royal Society Research Professor in 1963, and was Master of St. John's College, Cambridge from 1989 to 1994. He is Deputy Chair (recently Chair) of the British Pugwash Group, Patron of the Movement for the Abolition of War, and Patron of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Awareness Programme. The British Pugwash Group is an affiliate of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, recipient of the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize.
We have published a number of different titles concerned with this great man. These Are The Times: A Life of Thomas Paine is an original screenplay by Trevor Griffiths, which follows Tom Paine from persecution in England, to the American War of Independence, to Revolutionary France. It has recently been adapted for theatre and A New World makes its premiere at Shakespeare's Globe this summer (29th August - 9th October).
Another recent publication is Thomas Paine: In Search of the Common Good. The book offers reflections on his life and writings by a group of experts and specialists who came together at a Thomas Paine Colloquium held at the United Nations in New York.
Thomas Paine was a man of words. He inspired the American struggle for independence; he defeated the causes of the French Revolution. He was the greatest of the English/American 18th-century radical writers, with timeless works such as Common Sense, The Rights of Man, and The Age of Reason. This book, Thomas Paine: In Search of the Common Good, offers reflections on his life and writings by a group of experts and specialists who came together at a Thomas Paine Colloquium held at the United Nations in New York.
Thomas Paine died in Greenwich Village 200 years ago this week, a long way from Thetford in Norfolk, where he grew up and worked as a young stay-maker. There are celebrations already under way around the country to remember him, some of which are listed below:
Thomas Paine Friends, Inc. Chartered in 2002, this national and international organization strives to renew public recognition of the great Patriot-Author-Humanitarian and Political Philosopher as a founder of America, advocate of equal rights, justice, human rights, social welfare and free expression.
Job Titles:
- Editorial: Syria
- Editorial: What's
Trevor Griffiths was born and educated in Manchester and has been writing for theatre, television and cinema since the late 1960s. Here you can view and purchase the plays and screenplays byTrevor Griffiths published by Spokesman Books.
Trevor Griffiths' thrilling screenplay follows Tom Paine from persecution in England, to the American War of Independence, to Revolutionary France. It mixes politics, love and war.
Trevor Griffiths's screenplay broadcast on Radio 4 on Saturday 26th July and Saturday 2nd August 2008. Read the discussions about it on their Message Boards.
In May 2013, it's the centenary of the first publication of Sons and Lovers. To mark this anniversary Spokesman are reprinting Trevor Griffiths' highly acclaimed screenplay of the novel.