John Maclean
by Henry Bell
(Pluto Press, £14.99)

AS THE 100th anniversary of the infamous Battle of George Square in Glasgow approaches, there will be much ink spilt about Red Clydeside and Henry Bell's timely book on John Maclean is a welcome contribution to the centenary commemorations.

Radical icon: John Maclean

Like any worthy biography, it's as much a biography of the milieu in which the subject lived. In this case, we get a portrait of Scotland's modernity —  one of rapid urbanisation and its discontents — refracted through the figure of Maclean.

Both his parents fled from the Highland clearances to settle in the industrial slums of Glasgow, the second “workshop of the world,” and it's this important context that informs Maclean's politics and analysis.

In pellucid prose as well as drawing on the rich literary and musical renderings of Maclean's life, Bell breezily narrates his story, from his early years as a thorn in the side of the Glasgow educational establishment through his years of vociferous anti-war resistance and tireless organising on the Clyde for a revolution he thought was imminent.

It traces the development of his thought with regards to revolutionary strategy, the syndicalist belief in the mass strike to bring down the government and a later turn to nationalism.

Bell also does due diligence to the international context often shorn from the Maclean narrative, detailing how his imprisonment for sedition in 1918 became a cause celebre for the left globally and reminding us how Glasgow was seen as a revolutionary epicentre.

For many, the story of Maclean's life may be a familiar one, but the value of Bell's book is to rehumanise him. It does not shirk from exploring the foibles of his character, particularly how his political commitments often took precedence over his own health and family life as well as sensitively examining the claims of his mental deterioration due to his many stretches in prison.

Maclean — “the hero of Red Clydeside,” as the book's subtitle declares — is a much-contested and much-romanticised figure on the Scottish left. To write a fresh take on his life is an intimidating task and Bell more than delivers, successfully extricating Maclean from the mythologies, claiming him not for any particular left sect or nationalist myth but for humanity.

Returning to one's radical traditions always treads the dangerous tightrope between retreating into melancholic nostalgia and rescuing them as a galvanising inspiration for the present. Bell's compelling biography convinces us that John Maclean's remarkable life is the inspiration we desperately need.