You Can't Please All

A memoir of the political-intellectual life of the revolutionary writer Tariq Ali

This volume covers four decades: The Eighties and Nineties when the author was no longer engaged in active politics as a party-member of any sort, but had moved sideways to politico-cultural interventions: Setting up Bandung Productions (with Darcus Howe) and launching the Bandung File, a unique current affairs show on Channel Four and subsequently Rear Window that mixed culture, politics and ideas.

A mixture of anecdotes, reflections, jottings and story-telling the book covers defeats and the rise of new movements: social, political, anti-imperialist. His friendship with Hugo Chavez and trips to most of South America at the height of the Bolivarian wave The characters who appear in the book reflect life in the Eighties and beyond to the present day.

There are pen-portraits of Edward Said, the intellectuals that founded and re-launched the New Left Review: Edward Thompson, Perry Anderson, Raphael Samuel as well as his time at Private Eye, the LRB and The Guardian.