In Places This Book Is

We Are In A Strange Period Of History In Which A Revolutionary Has To Be A Patriot And A Patriot Has To Be A Revolutionary.

If You Ask Any Ordinary Reader Which Of Dickens's Proletarian Characters He Can Remember, The Three He Is Almost Certain To Mention Are Bill Sykes, Sam Weller And Mrs. Gamp. A Burglar, A Valet And A Drunken Midwife-not Exactly A Representative Cross-section Of The English Working Class.

Using The Word ‘political’ In The Widest Possible Sense. Desire To Push The World In A Certain Direction, To Alter Other Peoples’ Idea Of The Kind Of Society That They Should Strive After. Once Again, No Book Is Genuinely Free From Political Bias. The Opinion That Art Should Have Nothing To Do With Politics Is Itself A Political Attitude.

The Words Democracy, Socialism, Freedom, Patriotic, Realistic, Justice Have Each Of Them Several Different Meanings Which Cannot Be Reconciled With One Another.

Progress Is Not An Illusion, It Happens, But It Is Slow And Invariably Disappointing.