This book is put together from a collection of FA Ridley's contributions in a number of previously published works, long out of print. Its main thrust is to demonstrate that societies in crisis throw up analogous solutions to their problems (generally at the expense of the toilers, of whatever class) and that such 'modern' phenomena such as 'totalitarianism' have had antecedents in slave, feudal and other forms of social organisation. Stated in this way, the argument appears to be a truism, and only a proper reading of the book can show the depth of Ridley's insight. Moreover, it is a reminder of the originality of its writer. For example, Ridley's contention, treated with derision at the time, that the Roman Empire was the 'freeze' of a long period of decay, that it represented an attempt to prevent the fall of Roman society and was not its apogee, would now be regarded as a commonplace by all students of the disorders of the Roman state in the century before the Augustan 'solution'. Ste Croix's Class Struggle in the Ancient World that caused such excitement when it appeared in 1981 can be regarded as a social commentary on the same theme. Those who claim to be 'Marxists' and yet maintain an enthusiasm for 'liberation theology' might also profit from the link demonstrated in the final chapters of this collection between organised religion and all forms of reaction.,

But the main benefit of this book, surely, is to introduce a new generation of revolutionaries to the pleasures of reading FA Ridley at his best. Hopefully it will lead to a new appreciation of this most creative of Socialist thinkers, and to the appearance in print of the unpublished manuscripts listed on pages 172-3.

Al Richardson