Denis O’Hearn was born in New Mexico and is of Irish and Native Alaskan (Aleut) ancestry. He moved to Belfast in the 1970s, when his articles for In These Times and the Guardian introduced the Irish ‘H-Blocks’ prison conflict to the broad audience of progressives in the US.
He has been a community activist in Belfast, serving for many years as chair of the West Belfast Economic Forum and on the Board of Governors of the Irish-language primary school Scoil na Fuisoige. He taught at the University of Wisconsin and Queens University in Belfast and was a Fulbright Scholar at University College Dublin in 1991-92. He is now professor of sociology at the University of Binghamton in New York. Among his previous work, The Atlantic Economy: Britain, the US and Ireland won the 2002 Distinguished Scholarship Award from the American Sociological Association and his widely praised biography of the hunger striker Bobby Sands, Nothing But an Unfinished Song: Bobby Sands, the Irish Hunger Striker Who Ignited a Generation (Nation Books and Pluto Books) has gone through multiple printings. He also published (with Laurence McKeown, former hunger striker) a biography of Bobby Sands for young people, I Awoke This Morning (Belfast, Beyond the Pale) and the Irish language version D’éirigh mé ar maidin: Beathaisnéis Roibeaird Uí Sheachnasaigh do Léitheoirí Níos Óige (Dublin Coiscéim). He lived for a time in the zapatista community oventic and while there spoke on “la lucha en irlanda” to the Escuela Secundaria Rebelde Autónoma Zapatista “Primero de Enero,” and he now lives in Belfast and Binghamton.
Wobblies and Zapatistas: Conversations on Anarchism, Marxism and Radical History
SKU: 9781604860412
Authors: Staughton Lynd and Andrej Grubacic
Publisher: PM Press
ISBN: 9781604860412
Published: 9/2008
Format: Paperback, ePub, PDF, mobi
Page count: 300
Size: 5 x 8
Subjects: History, Politics
Praise
“There’s no doubt that we’ve lost much of our history. It’s also very clear that those in power in this country like it that way. Here’s a book that shows us why. It demonstrates not only that another world is possible, but that it already exists, has existed, and shows an endless potential to burst through the artificial walls and divisions that currently imprison us. An exquisite contribution to the literature of human freedom, and coming not a moment too soon.”
—David Graeber, author of Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology and Direct Action: An Ethnography
“In these desperate, often tragic, times, we look backward, forward, even to our dreams to be able to keep imagining a world in which justice may be part of more people’s lives. We look to lives lived before ours, to stories and their meanings, to strategies culled from the worlds of politics or ancient wisdoms. We look in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe, and here in the United States. We are willing to entertain any new idea or revamped strategy. Staughton Lynd’s life and work put him in a unique position to seek out someone like Grubacic, ask the pertinent questions, and tell the meaningful stories. Grubacic’s experience perfectly compliments Lynd’s. Here we have the best of a non-dogmatic Marxism listening to a most creative and humane anarchism. But this book is never weighted down by unforgiving theory. Just the opposite: it is a series of conversations where the reader feels fully present. It provides a marvelous framework for enriching the conversation that’s never really stopped: about how we may make this world a better place.”
—Margaret Randall, author of Sandino’s Daughters, When I Look Into the Mirror and See You, and Narrative of Power
“I have been in regular contact with Andrej Grubacic for many years, and have been most impressed by his searching intelligence, broad knowledge, lucid judgment, and penetrating commentary on contemporary affairs and their historical roots. He is an original thinker and dedicated activist, who brings deep understanding and outstanding personal qualities to everything he does.” —Noam Chomsky
Book Events
april, 2024
No Events
Reviews
- Some Thoughts on Synthesis and Political Identity
- Can We Make a New Haymarket Synthesis?
- Staughton Lynd Tackles Wobblies and Zapatistas
- Book Review: Wobblies and Zapatistas
- Wobblies and Zapatistas Reviewed by PMR
Interviews
- Today on Your Call: What’s the Relevance of Anarchism Today?
- Andrej Grubacic: Reconsidering Yugoslav Socialism
- Anarchism, Marxism, and Zapatismo
- Video of discussion on Wobblies and Zapatistas at Bluestockings Books