Jeff Sparrow

Jeff Sparrow (born 1969) is an Australian leftwing writer, editor and former socialist activist based in Melbourne, Victoria. He is the co-author of Radical Melbourne: A Secret History and Radical Melbourne 2: The Enemy Within (both with sister, Jill Sparrow). He is also the author of Communism: A Love Story and Killing: Misadventures in Violence.

As a student activist and member of the Trotskyist group, the International Socialist Organisation (ISO), Sparrow was one of the Austudy Five, controversially arrested after a protest in 1992. He was expelled from the ISO in 1995 and helped found the splinter organisation, Socialist Alternative (SA). After leaving SA, he was involved for some years in the group Civil Rights Defence.

Radical Melbourne (Vulgar Press, 2001) presents a guide through the first one hundred years of political radicalism in Melbourne, focusing on the structures, streets and public places that remain today, and illustrated by rarely seen images from the archives of the State Library of Victoria. Journalist and author John Pilger called Radical Melbourne "a brilliantly original, long overdue unveiling of a great city's true past". The book inspired Radical Brisbane, a similar project about the Queensland capital, by Raymond Evans and Carole Ferrier.

The sequel, Radical Melbourne 2: The Enemy Within (Vulgar Press, 2004), was described by reviewer Ian Morrison as "sparkl[ing] with furious wit ... the Sparrows are devastatingly funny."

Communism: A Love Story (Melbourne University Press, 2007) is a biography of the radical intellectual Guido Baracchi, a founder of the Communist Party of Australia. The book traces Baracchi's political career from his support for the Industrial Workers of the World to his association with the Trotskyist Fourth International; it also examines his turbulent personal life and his relationships with writers such as Katharine Susannah Prichard, Lesbia Harford and Betty Roland. It was shortlisted for the Colin Roderick Award.

...
Wikipedia