Tariq AliYou Can't Please All
Memoirs 1980-2024
Tariq Ali has written more than two-dozen books on world history and politics—the most recent of which are The Extreme Centre, The Dilemmas of Lenin and The Forty-Year War in Afghanistan, Winston Churchill—as well as the novels of his Islam Quintet and scripts for the stage and screen. He is a long-standing member of the Editorial Committee of New Left Review and lives in London.
Preface: Being in the World
Chronology
Introduction: Spy Cops – On Being Spied On for Fifty Years
BOOK I: THE END OF THE CENTURY
Part 1: Before the Fall
1. Southall 1979
2. The Thatcher Consensus
3. Farewell to the Fourth
4. Off to India
5. CLR
6. ‘We Have an Editor!’
7. Bandung File
8. Private Eye
9. Russia
10. Moscow Gold
11. Disrupting Heavenly Peace
Part 2: Friends and Comrades
12. Jarman
13. Ho Chi Minh
14. At M-K’s
15. Gott and the Guardian
16. Ernest Mandel
17. Saving the Review
18. Collateral Damage
19. Art of Spying
20. Renewals
BOOK II: A FAMILY INTERLUDE
The ‘Noble and Warlike’ Khattars of Wah
Family Origins
Family Life
A Family in Jeopardy
My Father
Aftermath
BOOK III: THE PROLONGED TWENTIETH CENTURY
Part 1
A New Millennium
Iraq at the Centre of the World
So Was It Worth It?
Mojitos in Pyongyang
The Boulder Interview: Palestine and Israel (2004)
Remembering Edward Said
Was Hugo Chávez Murdered?
Havana Diary (2005)
Al Jazeera, Al Bolivar, Telesur
Fellow Traveller: Oliver Stone
In War There Is a Need for Translators
Part 2
The Case against Tony Blair
The Family Miliband
The New Left Review at Fifty
The Charlie Hebdo Massacre
With Satyajit Ray
The Bhuttos of Larkana
A Painter of His Time
Casteism
Come Dancing
The New Adventures of Don Quixote
English Questions
The End of Cricket?
Kings and Queens
BOOK IV: JOTTINGS
Introduction: A Homage to Lu Xun
Parchment Does Burn (1989)
My Dinner with Mambety (1995)
Better Red than Wed (1996)
A Man without Instincts (1997)
Marx on Suicide (2001)
Al Jazeera (2002)
In Tripoli (2006)
Diyarbakir (2006)
Return to Cochabamba (2007)
Murder in the Family (2008)
The Nobel War Prize (2010)
Against the Extreme Centre (2011)
Blitz Spirit: Alex Cockburn (2011)
Pissing on Insurgents (2012)
Lincoln in His Lover’s Nightgown (2012)
‘Indian Army Rape Us’ (2013)
Ships in the Night (2013)
A Tear Gas Canister, Made in Brazil, Used in Turkey (2013)
Gaza: A Disgrace to the World (2014)
Benedict Anderson: An Irishman Abroad (2015)
The Quintet (1992–2016)
Mr Ford’s Hacienda (2018)
‘I’m Glad Edward Said Is Dead’ (2022)
Adieu Boris, Adieu (2022)
Worstward Ho (2022)
Celebrations (2023)
A Missed Churchill Footnote (2023)
Postscript: The Dying Palestinian
Epilogue: The Ashes of Gaza
Acknowledgements
Index
