Kopkind Colony

With Everyone’s Books, Kopkind is thrilled to bring Peter Linebaugh, “the best, most creative, most original historian living today,” to Downtown Brattleboro on Friday, July 19 at 6 pm for a celebration of, and free public talk on, his new book

In 1803 an Irish renegade, Ned Despard, stood on the gallows in London to be hanged for revolutionary conspiracy. His final speech, written with his Caribbean-born wife, Kate, expressed the hope that “the principles of freedom, of humanity, and of justice will triumph over falsehood, tyranny, and delusion.” The radical love between Kate and Ned serves as a cornerstone for this monumental history of the origins of capitalism (and simultaneously the UK and USA) as well as resistance to it, told through the lives and deeds of people whose No to war, privatization, capitalism and inequality resonates into the present. It is a story of dispossession and defeat, but also of common dreams and of the lessons that interlaced struggles for freedom hold for today. Kopkind was pleased to have Peter Linebaugh—a wondrous speaker and writer, praised in the quote above by Robin D.G. Kelley—as a mentor in residence five years ago. We are so happy Everyone’s Books will host this event this year for Red Round Globe Hot Burning, which, as Noam Chomsky says, “provides fascinating insights into the origins of our society” and is a work of beauty and genius.
Please join us!