Events Archive - Bristol Radical History Group

The Future in our Past

Book launches, poetry and exhibition opening

Callum Cant and Matthew Lee will talk about their new book The Future in our Past: The General Strike, 1926/2026 published by Verso. Richard Devereux will read poems from his newly published collection Coal and Fire (Culture Matters). Authors of two of the new BRHG General Strike Centenary Series will launch their new pamphlets: Mike Richardson’s Class or Company Loyalty? The printing industry and events of May 1926 in Bristol. And Chris Bowkett’s Conflicts of Interest: Co-operators, trade […]

Bristol and the 1926 General Strike

Exhibition

The exhibition will be launched on Saturday 16 May.

Opening Up the Archives

Bristol and the General Strike in 1926

Join the archivists and our historians in the Education Room to view original documents from the special collections. This year we will be focusing on Bristol and the General Strike in 1926.

Patriots, volunteers and scabs

The 1926 General Strike in Bristol

For nine days in 1926, the country ground to a halt as over four million workers downed tools in support of the miners. Mapping the flashpoints from the 1926 General Strike in Bristol, this behind-the-scenes walk around the city centre delves into the hidden histories from the strike, the use of propaganda and how the state fought back. A two-hour walk from Kingsley Hall on Old Market Street via the centre ending at the St James Barton – Bear Pit. Start point: Hydra Books, opposite Kingsley […]

Patriots, volunteers and scabs

The 1926 General Strike in Bristol

For nine days in 1926, the country ground to a halt as over four million workers downed tools in support of the miners. Mapping the flashpoints from the 1926 General Strike in Bristol, this behind-the-scenes walk around the city centre delves into the hidden histories from the strike, the use of propaganda and how the state fought back. A two-hour walk from Kingsley Hall on Old Market Street via the centre ending at the St James Barton – Bear Pit. Start point: Hydra Books, opposite Kingsley […]

Ireland: The Silent Voices

This ground-breaking documentary, originally made in 1983 for Channel 4 at the height of the war in Ireland, provided a critical counter-narrative to the pro-British propaganda spouted by most of the mainstream media in this country. Rarely seen, Ireland: The Silent Voices (80 mins), focuses on the stories and perspectives of ordinary people actively or passively involved in the conflict. In three parts, the film analyses the representation of the conflict on TV in Britain and in Europe. It […]

Radical Abundance and How We Get it

Capitalism has created a world of bullshit abundance, where we have too much of what we don’t need and too little of what we do. Through this system’s relentless pursuit of profits, we have been put on a collision course with social and ecological limits that can no longer be ignored. We need an alternative. We need radical abundance, a world of human and non-human flourishing made possible by democratically planned production. But radical abundance can’t just be voted into existence through […]

Future Song: a thrutopian vision of near-future Bristol

Dystopian visions far outnumber utopian visions in literature, and my last novel, Vampires of Avonmouth, is no exception. Set late this century between Avonmouth, which has become a vertiginous mega-city, and a part of future West Africa corresponding to today's Accra, climate change is all too real, yes. But the 2087 world of the book is also pervaded by shoddy AI; it's run by technology corporations; and everyone's brains are directly connected to the internet. In effect, the first two of […]

Utopian Bristol: Visions of Our City from the Middle Ages to the Far Future

Bristol has always been a city of dreamers and visionaries. From religious millenarians to social reformers, from science fiction writers to climate activists, people have continually reimagined what Bristol could become. This talk explores these varied and often conflicting visions of our city's future, examining how different people and communities have sought to build their ideal Bristol, and what we might learn from their successes and failures. The presentation traces four interconnected […]

Everything for Everyone

Intentional Communities and the Utopian Impulse

From the Diggers to the Hippies via the Chartists, Owenites and Tolstoyan Anarchists the utopian impulse has resulted in literally hundreds of new communities across the UK. Drawing on 30 years of researching and living communally the talk will explore the past, present and future of intentional community in Britain.