The Long Revolution Revisited

In this article Michael Rustin argues that the ideas of Raymond Williams in The Long Revolution (first published in 1961) have much to offer the contemporary left. Williams had a vision of all citizens participating fully in a ‘common culture’. He focused attention on the role of media technologies and education in the development of modern societies. He believed that the deepest understanding of a way of life was to be found in its imaginative explorations - in novels, plays, cultural criticism - rather than in its formal political writings. In this article Professor Rustin argues that the contemporary left needs to return to William’s imaginative modes of understanding in order to fashion a critique of the current order. He argues that the possibilities which Williams identified in The Long Revolution and in Towards 2000 remain valid starting points for the renewal of the socialist project today