The 1960s were a time of tumult and radicalism. Street Fighting Years captures the era's mood and energy, its hope and its passion. In this, the first of his memoirs, Tariq Ali tracks the growing significance of the protest movements of the time alongside his own formation as a leading political activist from Pakistan, where he defied the military regime to lead a demonstration against Patrice Lumumba's murder.

His political odyssey is unique. Ali witnessed the imperialist brutalities of the Vietnam War-torture, bombing, the killing of children-the aftermath of the revolutionary insurgencies led by Che Guevara in Bolivia, the jubilation of the Prague Spring, and the student protests on the streets of Europe and America. It is a story that takes him from Paris and Prague to Hanoi and La Paz. Along the way, Ali encounters allies and enemies, including Malcolm X, Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre, Marlon Brando, Henry Kissinger, John Lennon and Mick Jagger.

This edition includes the famous interview conducted by Tariq Ali and Robin Blackburn with John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1971.

Tariq Ali has not lost the passion and vim which made him a symbol of the spirit of '68 ... has not seen fit to join forces with the terminally cynical, or set up a graven god that can be accused of failing ... Ali has spent much of his life documenting America as the arsenal of counter-revolution. -- Christopher Hitchens
We need to remember the sixties, and Tariq Ali's book is valuable and well presented evidence of the time ... as Ali points out the transition from revolutionary to arch-conservative is nothing new ... we may frequently have been misguided, but nothing is sadder than a generation without a cause * Sunday Times *
Has me rapt on the hearthrug, peering into the embers of memory ... the Memoir proposes that the overriding themes were the confrontation with US imperialism ... the efforts of a generation to shake off the shackles of social-democracy and conduct war on capitalism à l'outrance -- Alexander Cockburn
Readable, informative and also inspirational ... the recollections of a person who has remained true to himself * Sydney Morning Herald *

Tariq Ali is a writer and filmmaker. He has written more than a dozen books on world history and politics-including The Clash of Fundamentalisms, The Extreme Centre and The Dilemmas of Lenin-as well as five novels in his Islam Quintet series and scripts for the stage and screen. He is an editor of the New Left Review and lives in London.