May Day Manifesto 1968

By Raymond Williams and Owen Jones

Anniversary edition of the classic political manifesto

Urgently relevant to current arguments about the crisis of austerity, the 1968 manifesto set out a new agenda for socialist Britain, after the failure of the postwar consensus. It sought to change the nature of the state, to drive a wedge between finance and empire, to stress the importance of a planned economy for all, and to detach Britain from the imperial goals to which it had long been committed. Today, the spirit of The May Day Manifesto offers a road map to a brighter future.

The original publication brought together the most influential radical voices of the era. Among the seventy signatories were Raymond Williams, E. P. Thompson, Stuart Hall, Iris Murdoch, Terry Eagleton, Ralph Miliband, and R. D. Laing. This edition comes with an introduction from Owen Jones, who brings a sense of urgency and hope to the contemporary debate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: May 29, 2018
• ISBN: 9781786636287

Raymond Williams

An academic, and the writer of both non-fiction and fiction, Raymond Williams (1921–88) was one of the most important and influential British thinkers of the twentieth century. Williams wrote about politics, culture, mass media and literature, and his work was key to the development of cultural studies. His best-known books include ‘Culture and Society’, ‘The Long Revolution’ and ‘The Country and the City’.