Tariq Ali Books In Order

Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree

‘An enthralling story, unraveled with thrift and verve. Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree is quizzical as well as honest, informative as well as enjoyable, real history as well as fiction…
a book to be relished and devoured.’ The Independent Tariq Ali tells us the story of the aftermath of the fall of Granada by narrating a family sage of those who tried to survive after the collapse of their world. Ali is particularly deft at evoking what life must have been like for those doomed inhabitants, besieged on all sides by intolerant Christendom. ‘This is a novel that have something to say, and says it well.’ The Guardian

The Book of Saladin

Tariq Ali’s second novel in The Islam Quintet is a rich and teeming chronicle set in twelfth century Cairo, Damascus and Jerusalem. The Book of Saladin is the fictional memoir of Saladin, the Kurdish liberator of Jerusalem, as dictated to a Jewish scribe, Ibn Yakub. Saladin grants Ibn Yakub permission to talk to his wife and retainers so that he might present a full portrait in the Sultan’s memoirs. A series of interconnected stories follows, tales brim*ming over with warmth, earthy humor and passions in which ideals clash with realities and dreams are confounded by desires. At the heart of the novel is an affecting love affair between the Sultan’s favored wife, Jamila, and the beautiful Halina, a later addition to the harem. The novel charts the rise of Saladin as Sultan of Egypt and Syria and follows him as he prepares, in alliance with his Jewish and Christian subjects, to take Jerusalem back from the Crusaders. This is a medieval story, but much of it will be uncannily familiar to those who follow events in contemporary Cairo, Damascus, and Baghdad. Betrayed hopes, disillusioned soldiers and unrealistic alliances form the backdrop to The Book of Saladin.

The Stone Woman

‘Ali spins a web of tales that is as inventive and fantastical as the Arabian nights.’ The Times. The Stone Woman is the third novel of Tariq Ali’s ‘Islam Quartet’. Like its predecessors Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree and The Book of Saladin its power lies both in the story telling and the challenge it poses to stereotyped images of life under Islam.

A Sultan in Palermo

Set in medieval Palermo, this is the fourth novel in Tariq Ali’s celebrated Islam Quintet.

The fourth novel in Tariq Ali’s Islam Quintet is set in medieval Palermo, a Muslim city rivaling Baghdad and Cordoba in size and splendor. The year is 1153. The Normans are ruling Siqqiliya, but Arab culture and language dominate the island and the court. Sultan Rujari King Roger surrounds himself with Muslim intellectuals, several concubines, and an administration presided over by gifted eunuchs. The bishops, expecting to be at the pinnacle of power, are angered by the decadence of the court. In this captivating novel, Tariq Ali charts the life and loves of the medieval cartographer Muhammed al Idrisi. Torn between his close friendship with the sultan and his friends who are leaving the island or plotting a resistance to Norman rule, Idrisi finds temporary solace in the harem; but, confronted by the common people of Noto and Catania, his conscience is troubled.

A Sultan in Palermo is a mythic novel in which pride, greed, and lust intermingle with resistance and greatness. Set in the past, it has haunting resonance today.

Night of the Golden Butterfly

The final volume in Tariq Ali’s acclaimed cycle of historical novels. Night of the Golden Butterfly concludes the Islam Quintet Tariq Ali s much lauded series of historical novels, translated into more than a dozen languages, that has been twenty years in the writing. Completing an epic panorama that began in fifteenth century Moorish Spain, the latest novel moves between the cities of the twenty first century, from Lahore to London, from Paris to Beijing. The narrator is rung one morning and reminded that he owes a debt of honour. The creditor is Mohammed Aflatun known as Plato an irascible but gifted painter living in a Pakistan where human dignity has become a wreckage. Plato, who once specialized in stepping back from the limelight, now wants his life story written. As the tale unravels we meet Plato s London friend Alice Stepford, now a leading music critic in New York; Mrs. Naughty Latif, the Islamabad housewife whose fondness for generals leads to her flight to the salons of intellectually fashionable Paris, where she is hailed as the Diderot of the Islamic world; and there s Jindie, the Golden Butterfly of the title, the narrator s first love. Interwoven with this chronicle of contemporary life is the turbulent history of Jindie s family. Her great forebear, Du We nxiu , led a Muslim rebellion in Yunnan in the nineteenth century and ruled the region from his capital Dali for almost a decade, as Sultan Suleiman. Night of the Golden Butterfly reveals Ali in full flight, at once imaginative and intelligent, satirical and stimulating. .

Fear of Mirrors

In this novel from esteemed political writer Tariq Ali, a father, Vlady, loses his job when he refuses to renounce socialist beliefs in the newly unified Germany and as a result wants to explain to his alienated son what their family’s long and passionate involvement with communism has really meant. The story he tells is of Ludwik, a Polish secret agent and Gertrude, Vlady s mother, whose desire for Ludwik is matched only by her devotion to the communist ideal. As the plot unfolds through the political upheavals of the twentieth century, Vlady describes the hopes aroused by the Bolshevik revolution and discovers the almost unbearable truth about the family s betrayal. Written with deep political insight and sensitivity, Fear of Mirrors relates the extraordinary history of Central Europe from the perspective of those on the other side of the cold war. Ali folds his drama around the tight, cultlike atmosphere of Communist Party life, peopled by idealists who find their lives encumbered by betrayals, power grabs, and corruption and who, in the post Communist era, must come to terms with their complicity with Stalinism…
. This is a valuable book, especially for those interested in the current thinking of the European left. Publishers Weekly, on the first edition

Ugly Rumours

Taking its title from the band which Tony Blair formed at Fettes College, this play is a satire on New Labour. Once upon a time Tony boy and Gordon were happy. Then came power, but sadly it meant that only one of them could be chief executive of the old firm. Behind the smiles lies a mountain of sulks. Envy strangles their friendship and fear eats their souls. But suddenly angels appear from on high in the shape of two spin doctors and some quack remedies. Will the nation heave a sigh of relief? Is New Democracy safe?

Collateral Damage

War rages in the Balkans. While NATO bombs Serbia, the Kosovan Albanians are driven out of their homes. Europe is divided. In homes everywhere, people debate the rights and wrongs of the war. This play reveals the results.

Snogging Ken

A politically charged after dinner entertainment.

The Illustrious Corpse

Newest play by noted writer, filmmaker, commentator Tariq Ali is a murder mystery set in the highest reaches of the British government. Ali has written numerous plays, novels and over a dozen books on world history. He is currently writing Bush in Babylon: Recolonizing Iraq, to be published by Verso Books.

The Nehrus and the Gandhis

The Nehrus are a dynasty without precedent in the modern world; nowhere else and at no other time in recent history has a single family wielded such enduring and pervasive power over the country and the electorate they serve. From Jawaharlal Nehru to his daughter, Indira Gandhi, and from there, via Sanjay and Rajiv to most recently Sonia, this remarkable family have consistently established both the parameters and rhetoric of India’s political development. In the eighties, Tariq Ali made several trips to India, meeting a wide range of political and public figures, including Mrs Gandhi, and leaders of both the Congress and Opposition parties. The Nehrus and the Gandhis, first published in 1985, was the result. Now updated to include the most recent chapters in India’s political history, it remains as relevant as ever, offering an intricate and revealing portrait of power, seen through the continued rise and eyes of one family.

Street Fighting Years

One of the world’s best known radicals relives the early years of the protest movement. This new edition features the John Lennon/Yoko Ono interview ‘Power to the People,’ published for the first time in the US, and an important new introduction. In this new edition of his memoirs, Tariq Ali revisits his formative years as a young radical. It is a story that takes us from Paris and Prague to Hanoi and Bolivia, encountering along the way Malcolm X, Bertrand Russell, Marlon Brando, Henry Kissinger, and Mick Jagger. Ali captures the mood and energy of those years as he tracks the growing significance of the nascent protest movement. This edition includes a new introduction, as well as the famous interview conducted by Tariq Ali and Robin Blackburn with John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1971.

Revolution from Above

This work looks at the Soviet Union as it finds itself at a key point in its history. Throughout the country a slow renaissance is taking place, and the author attempts to analyze in which directions the Soviet Union is likely to be moving in 1988 and beyond. Tariq Ali was one of the best known radicals of the 60s. He has been associated with many of the major figures of the period, from Che Guevara and Ho Chi Minh to Bertrand Russell. He is on the editorial staff of ‘New Left Review’. He also wrote ‘The Nehrus and the Ghandis’ and ‘Street Fighting Years: An Autobiography of the Sixties’.

1968

Nineteen sixty eight. A radical wave swept the world. From Washington to London, Paris to Saigon, Berlin to Lahore, Chicago to Mexico City, people took to the streets demanding emancipation. In Vietnam, the guerrilla armies launched the T t New Year offensive, which shattered the United States’ military confidence and changed the course of history. A peace movement without precedent arose in the United States and united men and women, blacks and whites, soldiers and civilians against the war makers in the Pentagon and the White House. They challenged their president with one cry: ‘Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?’ The war in Vietnam had come home. Robert Kennedy came out for peace and was killed; Martin Luther King, Jr., called for an end to the war and was assassinated; Black Power was born as young black Americans impatiently demanded change. The exemplary courage of protesters in the United States spread like wildfire throughout six continents. And as the voices of the oppressed began to make themselves heard, the modern women’s movement was born and feminism began to travel the globe. Nineteen sixty eight was a year of revolution. Barricades went up in Paris as 10 million workers went on strike and occupied their factories. In Czechoslovakia the Prague Spring bloomed, offering Europe a glimpse of the popular sentiment that would ultimately overturn the Soviet regime. In 1968: Marching in the Streets, Tariq Ali and Susan Watkins capture the mood of this pivotal year and the feelings that motivated those who wanted to change the world. These were days of hope and love, of satire, music, poetry and a new wave in cinema. 1968: Marching in the Streets is a celebration of the people and an explanation of the events that marked that year. Firsthand accounts from every continent reveal the universal nature of the ferment of ’68. It was a year in which millions fought shoulder to shoulder against war, dogma and repression of every sort. This book is their story.

Introducing Trotsky and Marxism

Together with Lenin, Trotsky was one of the architects of the Russian Revolution. A great orator, a skillful military tactician, a gifted historian and an unpredictable cultural throrist, Trotsky was brought down by inner party factionalism, exiled and then executed by Stalin. ntroducing trotsky and Marxism shows how Trotsky’s prophetic inshights foresaw the rise of Hitler and the price humanity would hav to pay.

The Clash of Fundamentalisms

Tariq Ali challenges misguided assumptions about the American Empire’s benevolence, arguing instead that what we have experienced is the return of History in a horrific form. The inviolability of the American mainland, breached on 9/11/2001 for the first time since 1812, led to extravagant proclamations by the pundits. It was a sudden menace confronting the twenty first century, an event of unprecedented dimensions, a new world historical turning point. Tariq Ali challenges these assumptions, arguing instead that what we have experienced is the return of History in a horrific form, with religious symbols playing a part on both sides: ‘Allah’s revenge’, ‘God is on Our side’, ‘God Bless America’. The ‘war against terror’ is a clash of fundamentalisms, religious versus imperial. Each is honored by time honored features a shameless use of disproportional military power by one and a carefully targeted fanaticism by its Other. The two forces are hardly equal. One is a product of despair, the other is an empire, whose ability to go to war is a chilling reminder of its place in the world. Contemporary politics is conducted and presented in the elitist style of intelligence agencies: disinformation, false information, exaggeration of enemy strength and capability, explanation of a TV image with a brazen lie and censorship. The aim is to delude and disarm the citizenry. Everything is either over simplified or reduced to a wearisome incomprehensibility. This wide ranging book blends history, literature, politics and autobiography to challenge the conformist culture of our times. Ali argues that many of the values proclaimed by the Enlightenment retain their relevance, while portrayals of the American Empire as a new emancipatory project are fatally misguided.

Bush in Babylon

The bestselling history of the Iraqi resistance, and a scathing account of the occupation. The assault and capture of Iraq and the resistance it has provoked will shape the politics of the twenty first century. In this passionate and provocative book, Tariq Ali provides a history of Iraqi resistance against empires old and new, and argues against the view that sees imperialist occupation as the only viable solution to bring about regime change in corrupt and dictatorial states. Like the author’s previous work, The Clash of Fundamentalisms, this book presents a magnificent cultural history. Detailing the longstanding imperial ambitions of key figures in the Bush administration and how war profiteers close to Bush are cashing in, Bush in Babylon is unique in moving beyond the corporate looting by the US military government to offer the reader an expert and in depth analysis of the extent of resistance to the US occupation in Iraq. On 15 February 2003, eight million people marched on the streets of five continents against a war that had not yet begun. A historically unprecedented number of people rejected official justifications for war that the secular Ba’ath Party of Iraq was connected to al Qaeda or that weapons of mass destruction existed in the region, outside of Israel. More people than ever are convinced that the greatest threat to peace comes from the center of the American empire and its satrapies, with Blair and Sharon as lieutenants to the Commander in Chief. Examining how countries from Japan to France eventually rushed to support US aims, as well as the futile UN resistance, Tariq Ali proposes a re founding of Mark Twain’s mammoth American Anti Imperialist League which included William James, W.E.B. DuBois, William Dean Howells, and John Dewey to carry forward the antiwar movement. Meanwhile, as Iraqis show unexpected hostility and independence, rather than gratitude, for liberation, Ali is unique is uncovering the depth of the resistance now occurring inside occupied Iraq.

Speaking of Empire and Resistance

A leading political writer and activist speaks out on the crisis in the Middle East, the war on terror, and the resurgent militarism of the American Empire. Exiled from Pakistan in the 1960s for his activism against the military dictatorship, Tariq Ali has gained a reputation as one of the English speaking world’s most forceful political thinkers, speaking out consistently against imperialism, religious fundamentalism, and, most recently, the misguided Anglo American war on terror, including the disastrous fiasco in Iraq. Ali’s most recent books, The Clash of Fundamentalisms and Bush in Babylon, have been widely praised and read. A prolific and eloquent writer, Ali is also a captivating conversationalist, and Speaking of Empire and Resistance captures him at his provocative best. This series of interviews brings together Ali’s insights into a wide range of topics among them the fate of modern day Pakistan, the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, the intractable Israeli Palestinian conflict, the state of the Islamic world, and the continuing significance of imperialism in the twenty first century. Speaking of Empire and Resistance reinforces Tariq Ali’s reputation as one of the most perceptive and engaging figures of today’s Left.

Rough Music

A seething report on the explosive state of affairs in Britain, highlighting Blair’s alliance with Washington and Bush’s losing war on terror. On July 7, 2005, the murderous mayhem that Blair’s war has sown in Iraq came home to London in a devastating series of suicide bombings. Two weeks later, with apparent impunity, security forces shot dead a young Brazilian electrician on his way to work. Rough Music is Tariq Ali’s riveting response to these events. He lays bare the vengeful platitudes of Blair’s war on civil liberties, mounts a scorching attack on the cozy falsehoods of the government’s ‘consensus’ on what the threat amounts to and how to respond, and denounces the corruption of the political media bubble which allows it to go unchallenged. Finally, invoking the perseverance and integrity of the great dissenters of the past, he calls for political resistance, within parliament and without.

Pirates of the Caribbean

Fully updated edition of this fiery polemic on Latin America’s challenge to US led neoliberalism. The Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela has brought Hugo Ch vez to world attention as the foremost challenger of the neoliberal consensus and American foreign policy. Drawing on first hand experience of Venezuela and meetings with Ch vez, Tariq Ali shows how Ch vez s views have polarized Latin America and examines the hostility directed against his administration. Contrasting the Cuban and Venezuelan revolutionary processes, Ali discusses the enormous influence of Fidel Castro on Ch vez, President of Bolivia Evo Morales and, in this fully updated edition, the newly elected President of Ecuador Rafael Correa, the latest addition to the Axis of Hope. Infused with references to the culture and poetry of South America, Pirates of the Caribbean guides us through a world divided between privilege and poverty, a continent that is once again on the march.

The Leopard and the Fox

The BBC commissioned Tariq Ali to write a three part TV series on the circumstances leading to the overthrow, trial and execution of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the first elected Prime Minister of Pakistan. As rehearsals were about to begin, the BBC hierarchy under pressure from the Foreign Office decided to cancel the project. Why? General Zia ul Haq, the dictator at the time, was leading the jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. He was backed by the USA. According to expert legal opinion, there was a possibility of a whole range of defamation suits from the head of state to judges involved in the case. In consequence, it was decided not to broadcast this hard hitting and provocative play. The Leopard and the Fox presents both the script and the story of censorship.

A Banker for All Seasons

During the late Seventies and Eighties a new logo began to jostle for space with the more traditional landmarks on high streets throughout Britain. It was the badge of a remarkable Third World Bank…
the BCCI Bank of Credit and Commerce International. BCCI soon become a global corporate empire with former US Presidents, ex British Prime Ministers and a range of dictators on its payroll, all helping with promoting the company. Tariq Ali was the first public voice to warn that the Bank was not all it seemed to be. Indeed, many of its own employees called BCCI the ‘Bank of Crooks and Cheats Incorporated’. Some political analysts also predicted the company’s collapse. The Bank finally imploded amidst a welter of scandal. This revealing screenplay presents an account of the rise and fall of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. Here, Ali reveals how BCCI lasted so long, how financial regulators failed to see what was going on and how BCCI pioneered a mode of operation that prepared the way for an even greater financial cataclysm, the fall of Enron.

The Assassination

Who killed Mrs Gandhi? We know the name of the assassins, but did they act alone? In this fictional filmscript, Tariq Ali suggests that larger forces were at work, exploiting genuine Sikh grievances to settle their own score with a Prime Minister who, whatever her faults, was fiercely independent of Washington and safeguarded Indian sovereignty with a zeal inherited from her father. Provocative and suggestive, this script planned as the second of a series was never completed. The Assassination is published here for the first time and completes Ali’s trilogy, with The Leopard and The Fox and A Banker For All Seasons.

The Declarations of Havana

Speeches by Fidel Castro in response to the US administration’s attempt to isolate Cuba. Renowned radical writer Tariq Ali analyzes the relevance of Castro’s message as the Bolivian revolution reignites behind Chavez. In response to the American administration’s attempt to isolate Cuba, Fidel Castro delivered a series of speeches designed to radicalize Latin American society. As Latin America experiences more revolutions in Venezuela and Bolivia, and continues to upset America s plans for neo liberal imperialism, renowned radical writer and activist Tariq Ali provides a searing analysis of the relevance of Castro s message for today.

The Duel

Pakistan is the sixth most populous country in the world. It is the only Islamic state to have nuclear weapons. Its border with Afghanistan extends over one thousand miles and is the likely hideout of Osama bin Laden. It has been under military dictatorship for thirty three of its fiftyyear existence. Yet it is the linchpin in the United States’ war on terror, receiving over $10 billion of American aid since 2001 and purchasing more than $5 billion of U.S. weaponry in 2006 alone.

These days, relations between the two countries are never less than tense. Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf reported that U.S. deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage threatened to ‘bomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age’ if it did not commit fully to the alliance in the wake of 9/11. Presidential hopeful Barack Obama said he would have no hesitation in bombing Al Qaeda inside the country, ‘with or without’ approval of the Pakistani government. Recent surveys show that more than 70 percent of Pakistanis fear the United States as a military threat to their country.

The Bush administration spent much of 2007 promoting a ‘dream ticket’ of Musharraf and Bena*zir Bhutto to run Pakistan together. That strategy, with Bhutto assassinated and the general’s party winning less than 15 percent of the contested seats in the 2008 election, is now in tatters.

With increasingly bold attacks by Taliban supporters in the border regions threatening to split the Pakistan army, with the only political alternatives Nawaz Sharif and Bena*zir’s widower Asif Ali Zardari being as corrupt as the regime they seek to replace, and with a newly radicalized movement of lawyers testing its strength as championsof the rule of law, the chances of sustained stability in Pakistan look slim.

The scion of a famous Punjabi political family, with extraordinary contacts inside the country and internationally, Tariq Ali has long been acknowledged as a leading commentator on Pakistan. In these pages he combines deep understanding of the country’s history with extensive firsthand research and unsparing political judgment to weigh the prospects of those contending for power today. The labyrinthine path between a secure world and global conflagration runs right through Pakistan. No one is better placed to trace its contours.

The Protocols of the Elders of Sodom

Provocative and witty essays on the giants of world literature. These provocative essays explore the links between literature, history and politics, through an examination of the work of Cervantes, Tolstoy, Proust, Musil, Roth, Platonov, Soltzhenitsyn, Grossman, Munif, Rushdie and others. Tariq Ali draws out common themes as well as polarities, and in each case locates the writer and his or her work in the appropriate political and historical context. The title essay is inspired by one of Proust’s lesser known reflections: if Zionism seeks a biblical homeland for the Jews on the basis of persecution, why not also look for a biblical homeland for gays and lesbians? This collection, showcasing Tariq Ali s range and polemical verve, will be sure to attract critical attention and a wide readership.

The Idea of Communism

November 9, 2009 will mark 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the monumental event that signaled the beginning of the end of Communism in the former Soviet Union. Yet, why was this collapse of Communism considered final, but the many failures of capitalism are considered temporary and episodic? In The Idea of Communism, Tariq Ali addresses this very question. The Idea of Communism, argues Ali, was simple and noble. The Communist Manifesto, which advocated the creation of a society based on the principle of from each according to his ability, to each according to his need rather than a system based on greed and profit, appealed to millions all over the globe. However, Ali argues that the vision of society adumbrated by the founders of Communism was a far cry from what became known as actually existing socialism in the Soviet Union and China. The Communist system that developed ignored Engels’s belief that a workers movement and its victory were inconceivable without freedom of the press and assembly. This freedom, Engels insisted, is the air it needs to breathe. Here, in a thought provoking re evaluation, Ali argues that a new form of socialism and global planning is vital to save the planet from capitalist and environmental degradation.

The Obama Syndrome

A merciless dissection of Obama’s overseas escalation and domestic retreat. Our country has borne a special burden in global affairs. We have spilled American blood in many countries on multiple continents…
Our cause is just, our resolve unwavering. We will go forward with the confidence that right makes might. Barack Obama, West Point, December 1, 2009 What has really changed since Bush left the White House? Very little, argues Tariq Ali, apart from the mood music. The hopes aroused during Obama s election campaign have rapidly receded the honeymoon has been short. Following the financial crisis, the reform president bailed out Wall Street without getting anything in return. With Democratic Party leaders and representatives mired in the corrupt lobbying system, the plans for reforming the healthcare system lie wrecked on the Senate floor. Abroad, the war on terror continues: torture on a daily basis in the horror chamber that is Bagram, Iraq occupied indefinitely, Israel permanently appeased, and more troops to Afghanistan and more drone attacks in Pakistan than under Bush. The fact that Obama has proved incapable of shifting the political terrain even a few inches in a reformist direction will pave the way for a Republican surge and triumph in the not too distant future.

The Verso Book of Dissent

A sparkling anthology of revolt and resistance to orthodoxy and repression. Throughout the ages and across every continent, people have struggled against those in power and raised their voices in protest rallying others around them and inspiring uprisings in eras yet to come. Their echoes reverberate from Ancient Greece, China and Egypt, via the dissident poets and philosophers of Islam and Judaism, through to the Arab slave revolts and anti Ottoman rebellions of the Middle Ages. These sources were tapped during the Dutch and English revolutions at the outset of the Modern world, and in turn flowed into the French, Haitian, American, Russian and Chinese revolutions. More recently, resistance to war and economic oppression has flared up on battlefields and in public spaces from Beijing and Baghdad to Caracas and Los Angeles. This anthology, global in scope, presents voices of dissent from every era of human history: speeches and pamphlets, poems and songs, plays and manifestos. Every age has its iconoclasts, and yet the greatest among them build on the words and actions of their forerunners. The Verso Book of Dissent will become an invaluable resource, reminding today’s citizens that these traditions will never die.

The Trials of Spinoza

Baruch Spinoza 1632-77 is considered one of the great rationalist thinkers of the seventeenth century. His magnum opus, Ethics, in which he criticized the dualism of Descartes, solidified his reputation and greatly influenced the Enlightenment thinkers who would build from his work.

Born in Amsterdam into a family of Sephardic Jews who had to take refuge there after they were expelled from Portugal, the precocious young scholar imbibed skepticism at an early age. By the time he was twenty-four, he had challenged what he called the ‘fairy tales’ of the Old Testament and was excommunicated by the Synagogue. In this biographical play, Tariq Ali contextualizes Spinoza’s philosophy by linking it to the turbulent politics of the period, in which Spinoza was deeply involved.

Ali originally wrote The Trials of Spinoza as part of a series on philosophy for British Channel Four television, and this publication also includes a DVD of that original television production. This work will be welcomed as a testament to the continuing interest in and relevance of Spinoza’s work and as an example of Ali’s eloquent and always politically engaged writing.