Diane Abbott

More than three decades after her election to Parliament, Diane Abbott is still racking up firsts. The first black woman elected to Parliament, she also recently became the first black person to represent their party at PMQs. Based on interviews with her colleagues, her political opponents and friends from school and university, as well as extensive archival research, Diane Abbott: The Authorised Biography traces Abbott's path from London, via Cambridge University, through the media and radical politics into Parliament, and then to the top of Jeremy Corbyn's shadow Cabinet.

From challenging expectations as a bright and restless child of the Windrush generation to making history as the first elected Black female MP in the UK, Diane Abbott has seen it all. A Woman Like Me takes readers through Diane’s incredible journey, painting a vivid picture of growing up in 1960s North London with her working-class Jamaican parents, before entering the hallowed halls of Cambridge University to study history. Ever since the day she first walked through the House of Commons as the first Black woman MP, she has been a fearless and vocal champion for the causes that have made Britain what it is today, whether it’s increasing access to education for Black children and speaking out against the Iraq war or advocating tirelessly for refugees and immigrants. A unique figure in British public life, Diane has often had nothing but the courage of her convictions to carry her through incredibly hostile environments, from torrential abuse in the mainstream media and on social media, to being shunned by the political establishment, including by her own party. Written with frankness and wry humour, A Woman Like Me is an inspirational account that celebrates how one woman succeeded against massive odds and built an extraordinary legacy.

Co-authors Diane Abbott and Kristoffer Gair present the fresh and daring journey of Sarah 'Emma' Edmonds, the first woman in American history to receive a Civil War pension. Posing as a man, she enlisted in the Civil War and served as soldier, nurse and spy for the Union army. Researched thoroughly in two countries, this book reveals the true, kindred spirit of a woman who lived and fought for what she believed in throughout her passionate and often shrouded life.

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Darcus Howe: a Political Biography examines the struggle for racial justice in Britain, through the lens of one of Britain's most prominent and controversial black journalists and campaigners. Born in Trinidad during the dying days of British colonialism, Howe has become an uncompromising champion of racial justice. The book examines how Howe's unique political outlook was inspired by the example of his friend and mentor C.L.R. James, and forged in the heat of the American civil rights movement, as well as Trinidad's Black Power Revolution. The book sheds new light on Howe's leading role in the defining struggles in Britain against institutional racism in the police, the courts and the media. It focuses on his part as a defendant in the trial of the Mangrove Nine, the high point of Black Power in Britain; his role in conceiving and organizing the Black People's Day of Action, the largest ever demonstration by the black community in Britain; and his later work as one of a prominent journalist and political commentator.

Diane Abbott, illustrated biography.

"We went into the general election with an unelectable leader, in a state of chaos with a manifesto that might have swept us to victory in cloud cuckoo land, but which was held in contempt in the Britain of 1983." It is said that those who do not learn from past mistakes are doomed to repeat them, and though Golding was describing the Labour Party of the early 1980s, he could just as easily have been talking about its situation today. A lurch to the left and a party in turmoil — the ascension of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader will, for many, trigger only unhappy memories of the dark days of the 1970s and '80s, when the party was plagued by a civil war that threatened to end all hopes of re-election. In that battle, moderate elements fought the illiberal hard left for the soul of Labour; that they won, paving the way for later electoral successes, was down to men and women like John Golding. In this visceral, no-holds-barred account, Golding describes how he took on and helped defeat the Militant Tendency and the rest of the hard left, providing not only a vivid portrait of political intrigue and warfare, but a timely reminder for the party of today of the dangers of disunity and of drifting too far from electoral reality.

A life-changing secret destroys an unlikely friendship in this "magnetic" (Meg Wolitzer) psychological thriller from the Edgar Award-winning author of Dare Me. You told each other everything. Then she told you too much. Kit has risen to the top of her profession and is on the brink of achieving everything she wanted. She hasn't let anything stop her. But now someone else is standing in her way - Diane. Best friends at seventeen, their shared ambition made them inseparable. Until the day Diane told Kit her secret - the worst thing she'd ever done, the worst thing Kit could imagine - and it blew their friendship apart. Kit is still the only person who knows what Diane did. And now Diane knows something about Kit that could destroy everything she's worked so hard for. How far would Kit go, to make the hard work, the sacrifice, worth it in the end? What wouldn't she give up? Diane thinks Kit is just like her. Maybe she's right. Ambition: it's in the blood . . .

Diane Abbott, illustrated biography.