Colin Barker

Colin Barker (b. 1939) is a British sociologist as well as a Marxist historian and writer. A long-standing member of the Socialist Workers Party in Manchester, he is the author of numerous articles and works on Marxism, including a history of the Polish trade union Solidarity, Festival of the Oppressed.

A Trotskyist, Barker was a member of the International Socialism Group in Oxford and Manchester from 1962. He was a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University from 1967 to 2002.

Selected articles/works

• Incomes policy, legislation and shop stewards (with Tony Cliff) (1966)
• Involvement in strikes: some recent case-studies, etc (1966)
• The power game (1972)
• Theory of Capitalist States (1978)
• A ‘New’ Reformism?—A Critique of the Political Theory of Nicos Poulantzas(1979)
• Origins and Significance of the Meiji Restoration (1982)
• Solidarnosc : from Gdansk to military repression (with Kara Weber) (1982)
• Festival of the Oppressed: solidarity, reform and revolution in Poland, 1980-81 (1986)
• Revolutionary Rehearsals (editor) (1987)
• The development of British capitalist society: a Marxist debate (edited with David Nicholls) (1988)
• To make another world: studies in protest and collective action (edited with Paul Kennedy) (1996)
• Leadership and social movements (edited with Michael Lavalette and Alan Johnson) (2001)
• In the middle way (review of Geoff Eley Forging Democracy) (2004)
• The rise of Solidarnosc(2005)
• Strike for Freedom(2006)
• Articles in Socialist Worker (2006)

References

• Short bio
• Short bio in MMU sociology newsletter

External links

• Colin Barker's website
• Colin Barker Internet Archive
• Works by or about Colin Barker in libraries (WorldCat catalog)