Central Books: a brief history 1939 to 1999

Dave Cope, Central Books, 99 Wallis Road, London E9 5LN, 80 pages, paperback, £5.99

Central Books was set up in 1939 as the retail and wholesale outlet for the Communist Party and other left-wing books and magazines. This is a brief and interesting story of its life as it grappled with the interaction between politics and business.

Although the 1980s and 1990s saw a decline in left-wing politics and the demise of the Communist Party, the appointment of two gifted managers in succession enabled Central Books to establish itself as the distributor for a very wide range of book publishers, and also to become a major distributor of magazines - it engaged in this from the beginning and has been distributing Labour Research for over 60 years.