Words as Weapons
Paul Foot
286 pages, including index
published in 1990

Paul Foot was a British journalist, as well as a political campaigner and socialist, a longtime member of the British Socialist Workers Party, who died suddenly last year of a heart attack. Despite the fact that Sandra had had this book on her shelves for a long time, I had never looked it until now. Nor had I read much, if any of his journalism before; for better or worse, Words as Weapons is my first introduction to his writing.

Words as Weapons is a collection of Paul Foot's journalistic writing, with most of the essays and columns dating from between 1980 and 1990, but with some older pieces as well. Many of the shorter pieces were written for the Socialist Worker, but there are also articles from the London Review of Books as well as the Daily Mirror. They cover a wide variety of subjects, all informed by Foot's socialism. Judging from these pieces, Paul Foot was the best kind of socialist writer, somebody who could look at a given subject throught he clear lens of his ideology, without letting its deformities (as any ideology has) warp his view. He doesn't hit you over the head with his views, but isn't afraid to share them either.

Reading Words as Weapons, it was interesting and frustrating to see how much of what we struggle with today, was already an issue in the eighties. Warmongering prime ministers, sleaze, corruption, relentless profitering by private companies through government contracts; nothing much has changed. Paul Foot has a skill in presenting these sometimes very complex issues he writes about clearly, a skill many a blogger can take an example from.

I have never hold the view that you should read a collection of essays by dipping into them occasionally, like a box of chocolates; instead, if such a collection grips me, I'm liable to read them the way I read any other book, straight through. This was a very pleasant experience with Words as Weapons, as Paul Foot has a clear, pleasant writing style which takes all the hard work out of reading him, without becoming simplistic. There's a skill in writing short, succinct articles and Paul Foot has mastered it.

In general, after reading Words as Weapons, I felt Foot is at his best when letting his socialism inform his writing, rather than writing about socialism directly. The articlesthat dealt directly with socialist matters were the least interesting in the book, partially because this is a subject in which a 1,000 word article does not suffice, but partially also because he tends to stick too closely to the SWP's party line. The style of writing, the way the arguments are presented in those articles can be found in any issue of Socialist Worker and nothing of Foot's personality is visible in them, unlike the rest of the book.