Dublin North East: Brian Greene

Ten years ago, on 21 July, 2001, as many as 300,000 workers and young people marched angrily through the streets of Genoa. It was the culmination of a week of protest against the G8 summit held in the city and presided over by George Bush. Their numbers had been swelled by outrage against the killing on the previous day of a young protester – Carlo Giuliano – in Alimonda Square by the forces of the Italian state. This demonstration was also attacked and broken up by police using tear-gas and wielding batons indiscriminately.

Rob Connolly has been active for years on many issues affecting  working people and communities in Dublin. Rob first became active in the anti water charges in the mid 1990s. That mass campaign was able to defeat the ‘Rainbow’ government of Labour, Fine Gael and Democratic Left, forcing them to abolish the hated tax nationally.

In this book Jonathan Sperber says he aims to place the great revolutionary thinker and activist firmly in his times. In a comprehensive, readable biography, the University of Missouri's Professor of History does succeed in portraying Marx engaging with 19th century society and intellectual currents.

Bitter resentment is the over-riding feeling of the majority of people who have felt compelled to pay the property tax.  Successive polls have shown mass opposition to this home tax. Unfortunately, people clearly lacked confidence about refusing to pay as their form of protest.