User talk:Sam Weller/Martin Walker

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I have no connexion with the original article or MW, but was looking on WP for info on the Health Freedom Movement. MW is singled out twice in that article, referred to as "notable", and his historical bibliography heads the "further reading". I believe the original article significantly mis- (or under-)represented MW's professional importance in two fields, as a writer and as a graphic designer. His secondary occupation of graphic designer was given as his primary designator, but even that was underplayed, since there was no mention that his political poster art from the 70s and 80s is held in 2 British national collections, including the V&A. However, it is as a political and cultural writer that he has earned his main reputation, over the last 25 years. However, the article failed to give publication details of MW's books published by mainstream publishers, including Sidgwick & Jackson, Canary Press, and Fontana, leaving the impression that he was purely self-published. A brief search in the national British Library catalogue gave the following 5 books:

1. Poor man Beggar Man Thief: The story of New Horizon Youth Centre. Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1972.

2. State of Siege; Policing the Miners Strike. Canary Press, London. 1985.

3. A Turn of the Screw: The aftermath of the 1984-85 Miners’ Strike. Canary Press (1985)

4. Frightened for my Life; Deaths in British prisons. Geoff Coggan and Martin Walker. Fontana. (1982)

5. With Extreme Prejudice: Police Vigilantism in Manchester. Canary Press, London (1987)

MW's importance as a political writer can be gauged from this extract from an independent review of "With Extreme Prejudice" (1987) that appeared in the wellknown cultural journal The Edinburgh Review:

"Walker’s method in this book (and his other ones) is to combine field research with searching philosophical critique of the tools at his and our disposal. Unlike many writers of the ‘left’, though, his concern is with citizens as human beings, not ciphers, which means his work is not only easy and exciting to read but also full of sudden insights into the way the arm of the state actually thinks…. It would be nice to go on and on quoting extracts from the book. More practically, every reader of ER should buy a copy, read it, then pass it around as many others as possible. It is quite honestly the most coherent and programmatic analysis of what goes on in this country today, why and what to do about it, ever."

The circumstances surrounding MW's move to self-publishing with his best-known book "Dirty Medicine" (1993) are politically noteworthy in themselves, and explained fully in the many interviews that he has given. An independent critical review of DM from the Marxist journal Capital & Class (1996) is available here: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3780/is_199610/ai_n8751139 Since that book, MW has written mainly on political aspects of the relations between health providers, government and the corporate pharmaceuticals sector.