Street-Fighting Years; An Autobiography of the Sixties

London: Verso, 2005. New Edition [stated]. First Printing [Stated]. Trade paperback. Good. x, 403, [3] pages. Illustrations. Index. Covers have flaps. Decorative cover, with some wear at the back. Signed and dated (NJ/2005) by the author on the title page. Tariq Ali (born 21 October 1943) is a Pakistani-British political activist, writer, journalist, historian, filmmaker, and public intellectual. He is a member of the editorial committee of the New Left Review and Sin Permiso, and contributes to The Guardian, CounterPunch, and the London Review of Books. He read Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Exeter College, Oxford. He is the author of many books, including Pakistan: Military Rule or People's Power (1970), Can Pakistan Survive? The Death of a State (1983), Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity (2002), Bush in Babylon (2003), Conversations with Edward Said (2005), Pirates of the Caribbean: Axis Of Hope (2006), A Banker for All Seasons (2007), The Duel (2008), The Obama Syndrome (2010),[4] and The Extreme Centre: A Warning (2015). His public profile began to grow during the Vietnam War, when he engaged in debates against the war with such figures as Henry Kissinger and Michael Stewart. He testified at the Russell Tribunal over US involvement in Vietnam. As time passed, Ali became increasingly critical of American and Israeli foreign policies. In 1967, Ali was in Camiri, Bolivia, to observe the trial of Régis Debray. He has been described as "the alleged inspiration" for the Rolling Stones' song "Street Fighting Man", recorded in 1968. John Lennon's "Power to the People" was inspired by an interview Lennon gave to Ali. One of the world's best-known radicals relives the early years of the protest movement. What makes a young radical? Street Fighting Years captures the mood and energy of an era of hope and passion as Tariq Ali tracks the growing significance of the 1960s protest movement, as well as his own formation as a leading political activist. Through his personal story, he recounts a counter-history of a sixties rocked by the Prague Spring, student protests on the streets of Europe and America, the effects of the Vietnam war, and the aftermath of the revolutionary insurgencies led by Che Guevara. 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. This edition includes a new Introduction and the famous interview conducted by Tariq Ali and Robin Blackburn with John Lennon and Yoko Ono In 1971.