George Orwell's Perverse Humanity

Glenn Burgess will talk about his book George Orwell’s Perverse Humanity, which focuses on Orwell's ideas about free speech and related matters - freedom of the press, the writer's freedom of expression, honesty and truthfulness - and, in particular, the ways in which they are linked to his political vision of socialism. The book is written in celebration of Orwell's dictum, 'We hold that the most perverse human being is more interesting than the most orthodox gramophone record,' and is a portrait of Orwell that develops a fresh understanding of him as a political thinker - and activist. It is based on archival research and new materials that affirm his work as an activist for freedom, and explores the relationship between his ‘liberalism’ and his ‘socialism’.