Series: Revolutions

Composed in 1790, Mary Wollstonecraft’s seminal feminist tract A Vindication of the Rights of Woman broke new ground in its demand for women’s education. A Vindication remains one of history’s most important and elegant broadsides against sexual oppression. In her introduction, renowned socialist feminist Sheila Rowbotham casts Wollstonecraft’s life and work in a new light.

Co-author of the groundbreaking Empire and Multitude, Michael Hardt examines The Declaration of Independence and other texts by Thomas Jefferson, arguing that his powerful concept of democracy provides a biting critique of the current American administration. Introducing this collection of Jefferson’s writings, Michael Hardt makes a powerful case for re-examining the foundational writings of this American revolutionary in order to...

Toussaint L’Ouverture was the leader of the Haitian Revolution in the late eighteenth century, in which slaves rebelled against their masters and established the first black republic. In this collection of his writings and speeches, former Haitian politician Jean-Bertrand Aristide demonstrates L’Ouverture’s profound contribution to the struggle for equality.

In this new presentation of The Gospels, Terry Eagleton makes a powerful and provocative argument for Jesus Christ as a social, political and moral radical, a friend of anti-imperialists, outcasts and marginals, a champion of the poor, the sick and immigrants, and as an opponent of the rich, religious hierarchs, and hypocrites everywhere—in other words, as a figure akin to...

In a series of debates with Oliver Cromwell in Civil War England of 1647, the Levellers argued for democracy for the first time in British history. Evolving from Oliver Cromwell’s New Model army in Parliament’s struggle against King Charles I, the Levellers pushed for the removal of corruption in parliament, universal voting rights, and religious toleration. This came to a...