Themes on sustainability, green campaigns and environmentalism are threaded through our collections.

Our collections related to the peace movement raise questions about the sustainable use of energy, in particular making links between nuclear power and nuclear weapons as well as the role of war in facilitating the extraction of oil. 

Left wing theorists and organisers have also had a long history of considering relationships between workers and land. We hold pamphlets and policies exploring socialist agriculture practices. Periodicals recording the struggles of landworkers to make claims for both just working conditions and just relations with nature. As well as the papers of green socialist parties who envisioned a more equitable future for both people and the environment. 

The Library has extensive collections covering both British and Soviet land use, town planning, science and agricultural policy. The pamphlet collection holds material on the post war reconstruction of the United Kingdom and USSR, the nuclear energy policies of both countries and the debate within British Left Wing movements as to the legitimacy of Lysenko’s critique of Mendellian genetics. Through coverage of the Vietnam war the Library includes commentary on the usage and chemical weapons and defoliants. These themes are in broad evidence in the serialised publications and provide a fascinating window into the development of ecological consciousness in leftwing movements from the mid century to the present day.  These include:

Herbicides and defoliants in war - Nguyen, Khac Vien

Soviet genetics and world science - Huxely, Julian 

A residential unit for town and country planning, Fawcett, C.B. (Charles Bungay, 1883-) 

Atoms for peace in the Soviet Union - Pisarzhevsky, Oleg Nikolaevich

Periodicals:

Our periodical collections include Land in Bloom, a 1950s British magazine that aimed to bring Michurinism - the agricultural theory favoured Trofim Lysenko – and Vole an environmentalist paper from the 80s that brings together questions about energy and technology with recipes for seasonal vegetables and recommendations for museums to visit. 

Showcasing the associations between the women’s movement and questions of the environment we hold Women for Life on Earth. This connects indigenous struggles, the peace movement, and the fight to protect the planet. 

We have copies of The Country Standard from 1930 until 1970, alongside the Country Worker also from the 30s and The landworker from 1946 to 2022. All of which document worker and trade union campaigns related to agriculture and struggles in the countryside. 

Finally, we hold copies of Land and Labour: the organ of the land nationalisation movement from the 1890s.  

Energy, War, and Colonialism:

How we power our society has implications for more than just sustainability goals. Oil and its value have also been integral in the production of ongoing colonial relations, something that has been recognised by socialist thinkers and is discussed in our collections in pamphlets such as Oil and Imperialism in East Asia. 

Nuclear energy is also contentious with groups such as agenor who explore the consequences of embracing nuclear both for worker’s and also in terms of the political systems such energy systems would require. They connect nuclear energy with nuclear war, but also with the concentration of economic power and the requisite police state needed to protect a nuclear industry. Further documents relating to nuclear power and peace can be found in our Bernal Peace Collection, where Eileen Bernal’s archive relating to Anti-Nuclear groups also collect together documents relating to Friends of the Earth and the Socialist Environment and Resources Association (SERA).

Transport:

Transport 2000 imagined and suggested plans for a new transport future, one that moved beyond a world of cars and supported walking, cycling, and extended public transport. They argue that roads are a social and environmental issue, with car usage encouraging inequality as well and ill health. 

They preempt the reclaim the streets movement and rather than taking on direct action they suggest a policy focused approach. Nonetheless they demonstrate the wider conversation happening about new roads and their implications in the early 90s. 

Green campaigns:

Our Noreen Branson collection we hold the documents and newsletters of 90s green socialist networks such as: the Greensocs, Green Left, and the Red-Green Newsletter. Which articulate a radical agenda for the environment that can also be found in pamphlets from The Socialist Party of Great Britain Summer School and the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science.