This volume makes for inspirational reading. The analysis is never anything less than penetrating, the conclusions profound. Read individually, we begin to see the current political predicaments of both the parliamentary and the extra-parliamentary left through the eyes of leading thinkers of their generation, every one of whom has gained a well-deserved reputation for the clarity of their writing on the never-ending drama of left politics in a largely hostile world. I am merely one member of a following generation who was schooled in the issues of left-political reinvigoration through familiarising myself with their work when I was a student. Read collectively, their contributions remind me once again today of lessons that a younger me learnt from their earlier insights. The world moves on, the issues of the day change, the targets for our opposition come in different forms, our aspirations for the future likewise, but one thing remains steadfastly the same. Together the individual essays collected here show that there is no magic bullet that will suddenly make everything right, no better world that will miraculously drop from the skies and be embraced by political friend and foe alike. There is still much work to be done, much ink to be spilt, many meetings to attend, many demonstrations to go on, many disagreements to be had, as different versions of a shared progressive future are suggested, discussed and argued over. All of that requires clarity of analysis as the first step to outlining the pathologies of the current condition, and it would be hard to imagine a single volume making a better start to such a task than this one does.

Of course, exactly where one starts is a function of historical experience, historical memory and historical imagination. Inevitably when setting off to reflect on the issues that the contributors were asked to write about, the question of whether we have been here before asserts itself as a significant background presence.

Echoes of past debates and past struggles will naturally be called to mind. As the preceding chapters amply demonstrate, though, it is equally natural that they will do so in different ways.