Spokesman the publishing imprint of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation

18/02/2024

Johan Galtung 1930-2024

Johan laid the foundations for peace research. His life and work inspire. In the early 1980s, Spokesman published his influential study, There Are Alternatives: Four Roads to Peace and Security. He contributed to the first European Nuclear Disarmament Convention in Brussels in 1982 and spoke at the New York session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine in 2012. His pioneering sociology exposed structural violence and related contemporary problems. His infectious smile won over many who encountered him.

17/02/2024

Nuclear testing was poisoning the atmosphere— ‘the CND’, as Bertrand Russell called it, caught the public mood of opposition to the H-Bomb, which was many times more devastating than the atomic bombs that had laid waste to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

17/02/2024

Bertrand Russell is one of the friends sharing ’s prison cell.

Four years ago, the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation wrote to Julian via John Pilger. Eventually, late in 2023, we received a reply. In turn, we sent Julian an early copy of our new edition of Russell’s THE ABC OF ATOMS, first published in 1923. Russell had done time in Brixton Prison in 1918, where he also craved books for company. Fortunately, ABC OF ATOMS was delivered.

Free Julian Assange NOW!

12/02/2024

To mark E. P. Thompson’s centenary we make available in facsimile his landmark pamphlet, Protest and Survive. First published as Spokesman Pamphlet No 71 in 1980 for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, Protest and Survive circulated far and wide. It helped spark a revival of anti-nuclear campaigning and the growth of the international campaign for European Nuclear Disarmament. The influential END Appeal, which called for a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Europe, was included with Edward’s text.

The END Appeal opened with these words: We are entering the most dangerous decade in human history. Can the same be said for the 2020s? If so, we must continue to Protest and Survive.

By E. P. Thompson To mark E. P. Thompson's centenary we make available in facsimile his landmark pamphlet, Protest and Survive. First published as Spokesman Pamphlet No 71 in 1980 for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, Protest and Survive circulated far a...

04/02/2024

INVITATION
Online discussion on Saturday 10 February at 6pm UK a time

02/02/2024

Bertrand Russell died on 2 February 1970. To mark the anniversary, we're sharing Russell's short story, 'The Misfortune of Being Out of Date', which was recently re-published in The Spokesman journal.

https://spokesmanbooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/12Misfortune_Template.pdf

26/01/2024

Dossier: Israel's Genocide on Gaza.
[From The Spokesman 156]
Download here:https://spokesmanbooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/3PalestineDossier_Template-Cropped.pdf

16/01/2024

Keith Bennett reviews Glyn Ford’s ‘Picturing the DPRK’ in tomorrow’s Morning Star. Buy the book here: https://spokesmanbooks.org/product/picturing-the-dprk/

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/normal-life-north-korea

Given the prevalence of negative propaganda, KEITH BENNETT welcomes a rare picture book of the DPRK that seeks to present rather than sensationalise

12/01/2024

From The Spokesman 155: Depth of Fear
By Ken Coates
https://spokesmanbooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/155DepthFear.pdf

While I was in China attending the Beijing Peace Forum, I asked my hosts about these deep shelters which have recently been partially converted to civilian use. At the end of the Forum, they invited me to visit one. So traumatic was this experience that I wish it had been shared with all the other participants in the Forum, who at the time had set off on a tour of other areas in the country...

11/01/2024

The Spokesman 156: Israel's on
https://spokesmanbooks.org/product/the-spokesman-156-genocide/

11/01/2024

Pre-order: Israel's Genocide on Palestine, The Spokesman 156

https://spokesmanbooks.org/product/the-spokesman-156-genocide/

Edited by Tony Simpson & Tom Unterrainer

CONTENTS:

Editorial Israel’s Genocide on Palestine Tony Simpson

Dossier: Israel’s Genocide on Gaza

Introduction Tom Unterrainer

Genocide is not far behind Ahdaf Soueif

Genocide Russell Tribunal on Palestine

Not in a vacuum António Guterres

Prevent Genocide Lemkin Institute

Dear High Commissioner Craig Mokhiber

Gaza is running out of time UN Experts

Article 99 António Guterres

Timeline Lemkin Institute

Genocidal Intent South Africa

* * *

Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal Tony Simpson

Israel’s Bomb Ken Coates

Atomic ABC David Ellwood

Barry Feinberg, Ralph Schoenman Tony Simpson

* * *

Dossier: Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons 2MSP

Introduction Tom Unterrainer

Humanitarian Consequences Scientific Advisory Group

Universalising the TPNW Government of Austria

Averting catastrophe TPNW States Parties

Statements and speeches Palestine, Cuba, Mongolia et al

* * *

Prepare for peace Jackie Cabasso

Tectonic changes Reiner Braun

Scientific Romance Tom Unterrainer

The Misfortune of Being Out of Date Bertrand Russell

The World Turned Upside Down Chris Cole

Reviews: Barry Baldwin, Cmdr. Robert Forsyth RN (Ret’d), Stephen Winfield

The Spokesman 156 | Israel's Genocide on Palestine | Edited by Tony Simpson and Tom Unterrainer | Journal of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation

10/01/2024

From The Spokesman 155: China and the Bomb
By Tom Unterrainer
https://spokesmanbooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/155ChinaBomb.pdf

08/01/2024

From The Spokesman 155: Preferring Chinese Wisdom
By Jenny Clegg
https://spokesmanbooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/155ProfferingChineseWisdom.pdf

At a critical moment for the world, with the war in Ukraine threatening to spiral out of control, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, took a dramatic step forward with the announcement of the 12­-point proposal on the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis [see Spokesman 154: Eurasia in the World]. Just three days earlier, China released a concept paper on its Global Security Initiative that provided clarification on the rationale behind the 12­-point proposal. Almost entirely escaping the superficial attention of the Western media, the concept paper sets out to explain the aim of the Global Security Initiative to seek to ‘eliminate the root cause of wars and improve global security governance’.

05/01/2024

From The Spokesman 155: Call to Mutiny
By Daniel Ellsberg
https://spokesmanbooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/155CalltoMutiny.pdf

We honour Daniel Ellsberg (1931-­2023). He began his career as a Pentagon specialist on nuclear command and control systems. In 1971 he published the Pentagon Papers blowing the whistle on US bombing in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. This landmark essay appeared in ENDpapers One (The Spokesman 39) in winter 1981­82, with permission of Monthly Review Press, who published the US edition of Protest and Survive (E.P. Thompson and Dan Smith, 1981)

02/01/2024

From The Spokesman 155: Backsliding
By Alexander Kmentt
https://spokesmanbooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/155Backsliding.pdf

This NPT meeting takes place in extraordinary times. Russia, a permanent member of the UN Security Council and depositary state of our treaty, is waging a terrible war of aggression against Ukraine. We categorically condemn Russia’s clear violations of international law and international humanitarian law. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has not only devastating effects primarily for Ukrainian civilians on the ground, it is also coupled with repeated implicit but unmistakable nuclear threats — which are in fact threats against all of us since we know that the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons know no borders. This has shaken the entire nuclear disarmament and non­proliferation regime ...

01/01/2024

loved DOG by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, as he told us when rang to renew his subscription to The Spokesman journal

30/12/2023

From The Spokesman 155: Climate Emergency
By António Guterres
https://spokesmanbooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/155ClimateEmergency.pdf

Humanity is in the hot seat. Today, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the European Commissions Copernicus Climate Change Service are releasing official data that confirms that July [2023] is set to be the hottest month ever recorded in human history. We don’t have to wait for the end of the month to know this. Short of a mini­Ice Age over the next days, July will shatter records across the board...

27/12/2023

From The Spokesman 155: In Memoriam White Rose
A Poem by Ben Thompson
https://spokesmanbooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/155WhiteRose.pdf

23/12/2023

From The Spokesman 155: The Atomic Bomb
By Bertrand Russell

It is impossible to imagine a more dramatic and horrifying combination of scientific triumph with political and moral failure than has been shown to the world in the destruction of Hiroshima. From the scientific point of view, the atomic bomb embodies the results of a combination of genius and patience as remarkable as any in the history of mankind....

20/12/2023

From The Spokesman 155: Oppenheimer reviewed
By Tony Simpson

https://spokesmanbooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/155Oppenheimer.pdf

17/12/2023

Editorial, The Spokesman 155: Oppenheimer in Mind
By Tony Simpson

https://spokesmanbooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/155Editorial.pdf

09/12/2023

“Despite the intolerable horror and anguish being faced by Gazans, which is visible to anyone on social media, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has rebuffed the desperate cries of over two million Palestinians on four separate occasions. Led primarily by Israel’s chief ally on the UNSC, the United States, Western nations have rallied around opposition to ceasefire and even to a paltry ‘humanitarian pause.’ …”

December 8, 2023 The Lemkin Institute regards with dismay and sorrow the inaction and apparent powerlessness of the “international community” towards the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. In complete darkness, without food and water, sheltering from falling bombs and mi...

05/12/2023

📢National March for Palestine - 9 December

Join us in London on Saturday 9 December for the next national demonstration calling for a permanent ceasefire to end the war in Gaza.

📍Assemble 12 noon, Bank Junction

Download your CND ! poster: cnduk.org/ceasefire-now-resources-for-your-actions-for-palestine/

04/12/2023

Raphael Lemkin coined the term ‘genocide’. He explained why.

03/12/2023

Hind tweets from Gaza City, where she is stranded amidst heavy bombardment on all sides. This broadcast was a few days ago, which we post in solidarity to acknowledge her brave and factual reporting. The first Sunday of Advent sees savage slaughter wrought on Gaza. How can life go on whilst such cruel treatment is meted out to our fellow kind, to which they have no redress?

26/11/2023

Helen Jackson reflects on her work with Mo Mowlam in Northern Ireland and draws some lessons about thinking globally while acting locally, particularly in relation to the gross violations of international law taking place in Palestine and Israel.

Helen Jackson introduces the second edition of her book People’s Republic of South Yorkshire, published by Spokesman. What started as an historical story using the collective voices of many people …

23/11/2023

NEW TITLE: PICTURING THE DPRK
https://spokesmanbooks.org/product/picturing-the-dprk/

By Glyn Ford

North Korea, or as it prefers to be known the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), is portrayed as mysterious and malevolent with its leadership denounced for its military enterprise and human rights abuses. It is no one’s poster boy for anything positive, prejudged as perennially guilty of the worst actions for the worst reasons. Yet, hidden behind this facade are the people of the DPRK as depicted in these photographs taken by Glyn Ford during some 50 visits over recent decades. Outside the circle of family and friends who hold the reigns of power and feature so prominently in the coverage of the tabloids and TV, there are 26 million men, women and children like us. These millions have their hopes, dreams, and fears that march on a treadmill that rarely stops, save intercut with rest and play. Picturing the DPRK puts these people and their places centre stage. They, and the rest of the people on the Peninsula, will be the hapless victims of any attempt to force regime change or any inadvertent stumbling into war. The lessons of Iraq, Libya and Syria have taught the world that applied idealism in the absence of realism is the road to hell in a handcart.

23/11/2023

NEW TITLE: THE ABC OF ATOMS
Long out of print, this new edition of The ABC of Atoms is introduced by Dr David Alexandre Ellwood, a theoretical physicist and former research director of the Clay Mathematics Institute. Dr Ellwood serves on the Executive Committee of British Pugwash. The ABC of Atoms was first published in 1923...
https://spokesmanbooks.org/product/abc-atoms/

15/11/2023

Raphael Lemkin coined the term ‘genocide’, which is central to the UN Convention on Genocide. He wrote about it here.