Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
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Obituary: William ‘Bill’ Fishman
Labour movement historian
April 1 1921 – December 22 2014
ANGUS REID explains the significance of Cuba’s egalitarian in letter and spirit Family Code and the pertinent lessons it holds for democracies anywhere in the world
Special report by PEOPLE’S WORLD
NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
William “Bill” Fishman, who has died aged 93, is a great loss to working people’s history.
He was both a compassionate and passionate working-class historian — his supreme achievement the bringing to life of the political and social history of London’s East End.
Even in the 1960s, many of his peers were still writing about its inhabitants as if they were little more than an “outcast” mob — brutish, uneducated and with no political understanding beyond self-interest.
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