Bread and Roses Award

The Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing is a British literary award presented for the best radical book published each year, with radical book defined as one that is "informed by socialist, anarchist, environmental, feminist and anti-racist concerns" – in other words, ideologically left books. The award believes itself to be the UK's only left-wing only book prize. Books must be written, or largely written by authors or editors normally living in the UK, or international books available for purchase in the UK. Winning authors receive GB£1,000. The Bread and Roses Award is sponsored by the Alliance of Radical Booksellers and has no corporate sponsorship.

Bread and Roses is a phrase from the Bread and Roses strike of 1912 among textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts. In a song – "Bread and Roses" – commemorating the event, the strikers supposedly struck "for bread, and for roses too."

The inaugural prize was announced 1 May 2012, on International Workers Day, at the Bread and Roses pub in Clapham, London.

Winners and shortlists

 * 2012 David Graeber, Debt: The First 5,000 Years
 * Tim Gee, Counterpower: Making Change Happen
 * Nadia Idle and Alex Nunns (editors), Tweets from Tahrir: Egypt’s Revolution as it Unfolded, in the Words of the People Who Made It
 * Owen Jones, Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class
 * Andy Merrifield, Magical Marxism
 * Laurie Penny, Penny Red: Notes from the New Age of Dissent
 * Nicholas Shaxson, Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men who Stole the World
 * 2013 Hsiao-Hung Pai, Scattered Sand: The Story of China's Rural Migrants
 * Federico Campagna and Emanuele Campiglio (editors), What We Are Fighting For: A Radical Collective Manifesto
 * Danny Dorling, No-Nonsense Guide to Equality
 * Donny Gluckstein, A People's History of the Second World War: Resistance Versus Empire
 * Eveline Lubbers, Secret Manoeuvres in the Dark: Corporate and Police Spying on Activists
 * Paul Mason, Why It's Still Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions
 * Daniel Poyner (editor), Autonomy: The cover designs of Anarchy 1961–1970
 * Dan Swain, Alienation: An Introduction to Marx’s Theory
 * 2014 Joe Glenton, Soldier Box: Why I Won’t Return to the War on Terror
 * Rob Evans and Paul Lewis, Undercover: The True Story of Britain's Secret Police
 * Oscar Guardiola-Rivera, Story of a Death Foretold: The Coup against Salvador Allende, 11 September 1973
 * Barry Kushner and Saville Kushner, Who Needs the Cuts?: Myths of the Economic Crisis
 * Katharine Quarmby, No Place to Call Home: Inside the Real Lives of Gypsies and Travellers
 * Andrew Simms, Cancel the Apocalypse: The New Path to Prosperity
 * Imogen Tyler, Revolting Subjects: Social Abjection and Resistance in Neoliberal Britain
 * 2015 Helena Earnshaw and Angharad Penrhyn Jones, Here We Stand: Women Changing The World
 * Ha-Joon Chang, Economics: The User’s Guide
 * Malu Halasa, Zaher Omareen and Nawara Mahfoud, Syria Speaks: Art and Culture from the Frontline
 * Tansy E. Hoskins, Stitched Up: The Anti-Capitalist Book of Fashion
 * Francesca Martinez, What the **** is Normal?!
 * James Meek, Private Island: Why Britain Now Belongs to Someone Else
 * Lara Pawson, In the Name of the People: Angola’s Forgotten Massacre
 * 2016 Jeremy Seabrook, The Song of the Shirt: The High Price of Cheap Garments, from Blackburn to Bangladesh
 * Phil Chamberlain and Dave Smith, Blacklisted: The Secret War Between Big Business and Union Activists
 * Kate Evans, Red Rosa: A Graphic Biography of Rosa Luxemburg
 * Mel Evans, Artwash: Big Oil and the Arts
 * Rhian E. Jones, Petticoat Heroes: Gender, Culture and Popular Protest in the Rebecca Riots
 * Katrine Marçal, Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner? A Story About Women and Economics
 * 2017 Alex Nunns, The Candidate: Jeremy Corbyn’s Improbable Path to Power
 * Dawn Foster, Lean Out
 * Andrea Needham, The Hammer Blow: How 10 Women Disarmed a War Plane
 * Lara Pawson, This is the Place to Be
 * See Red Members & Sheila Rowbotham, See Red Women's Workshop – Feminist Posters 1974-1990
 * Jack Shenker, The Egyptians: A Radical Story
 * Gary Younge, Another Day in the Death of America
 * 2018 Stuart Hall, Familiar Stranger: A Life Between Two Islands (with Bill Schwarz) (joint winner)
 * Reni Eddo-Lodge, Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race (joint winner)
 * Kapka Kassabova, Border: A Journey To The Edge Of Europe
 * Heather McDaid (Editor), Laura Jones (Editor), Nasty Women
 * Vickie Cooper, David Whyte (editors), The Violence of Austerity
 * Dave Randall, Sound System: The Political Power of Music


 * 2019 Liz Fekete, Europe's Fault Lines: Racism and the Rise of the Right
 * Akala, Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire
 * June Eric-Udorie (Editor), Can We All Be Feminists?: Seventeen writers on intersectionality, identity and finding the right way forward for feminism
 * Juno Mac and Molly Smith, Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers' Rights
 * Daniel Trilling, Lights In The Distance: Exile and Refuge at the Borders of Europe
 * Mike Wendling, Alt Right: From 4chan to the White House
 * 2020 Johny Pitts, Afropean: Notes from Black Europe
 * Frances Ryan, Crippled: Austerity and the Demonization of Disabled People
 * Becky Alexis-Martin, Disarming Doomsday: The Human Impact of Nuclear Weapons since Hiroshima
 * Ruth Kinna, The Government of No One: The Theory and Practice of Anarchism
 * Priyamvada Gopal, Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent
 * Kate Charlesworth, Sensible Footwear: A Girl’s Guide. A graphic guide to lesbian and queer history 1950-2020
 * 2021 Ellen Clifford, The War on Disabled People: Capitalism, Welfare and the Making of a Human Catastrophe
 * Stella Dadzie, A Kick in the Belly: Women, Slavery and Resistance
 * Marcus Gilroy-Ware After the Fact? The Truth About Fake News
 * Emma Griffin, Bread Winner: An Intimate History of the Victorian Economy
 * Owen Hatherley, Red Metropolis: Socialism and the Government of London
 * Dan Hicks, The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution
 * Olivette Otele, African Europeans: An Untold History
 * 2022 Florian Grosset, The Chagos Betrayal : How Britain Robbed an Island and Made Its People Disappear
 * Koshka Duff et al, Abolishing the Police
 * Hsiao-Hung Pai, Ciao Ousmane: The Hidden Exploitation of Italy’s Migrant Workers
 * Gargi Bhattacharyya et al, Empire's endgame: Racism and the British State
 * Matthew Brown and Rhian E Jones, Paint your town red