The UK's first book award celebrating radical, leftwing writing has been launched, with a tweet-by-tweet history of the Egyptian revolution and Owen Jones's exploration of the demonisation of the working classes, Chavs, competing for the inaugural prize.

The Bread and Roses award for radical publishing – named after the slogan chanted in 1912 by striking textile workers in Massachusetts, who struck for "bread, and for roses too" – is looking for books "informed by socialist, anarchist, environmental, feminist and anti-racist concerns", which also "inspire, support or report on political and/or personal change". Run by the newly-formed Alliance of Radical Booksellers, the prize has no corporate sponsorship and believes it is the UK's only literary award with explicitly leftwing entry criteria.

"Radical publishing is going through a renaissance, making the establishment of the Bread and Roses award timely," said trustee Ross Bradshaw from Five Leaves Publishing, a literary and radical press. His fellow trustee Nik Gorecki, of Housmans Bookshop, added that "the central involvement of radical bookshops in the establishment and running of the Bread and Roses award also really sets it apart from other book prizes".

Judges Michael Rosen, the poet and children's author, lecturer and feminist writer Nina Power and Writing on the Wall festival director Madeline Heneghan have chosen a shortlist of seven titles to compete for the inaugural Bread and Roses prize, which is worth £1,000.

Tim Gee's Counterpower looks at struggles from the suffrage movement to the Arab spring, David Graeber's Debt: The First 5,000 Years analyses the history of debt and Tweets from Tahrir, edited by Nadia Idle and Alex Nunns, collects the story of the Egyptian uprising through the tweets of those who rose. Jones's Chavs, Andy Merrifield's Magical Marxism, Laurie Penny's collection of her writing Penny Red and Nicholas Shaxson's exposé of tax havens Treasure Islands complete the lineup.

Organisers are hoping the Bread and Roses prize will bring radical non-fiction to a wider audience, as well as encouraging the publishing of more radical titles and rewarding "exceptional" work. "Radical movements need radical books and we are delighted to be promoting the wonderful range of inspiring and informative books being published today, through the Bread and Roses prize," said award trustee Mandy Vere of News from Nowhere Bookshop.

The winner will be announced on 1 May, International Workers' Day, at the Bread and Roses pub in Clapham, London.

The shortlist

Counterpower: Making Change Happen by Tim Gee

Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber

Tweets from Tahrir: Egypt's Revolution as it Unfolded, in the Words of the People Who Made It edited by Nadia Idle and Alex Nunns

Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class by Owen Jones

Magical Marxism: Subversive Politics and the Imagination by Andy Merrifield

Penny Red: Notes from the New Age of Dissent by Laurie Penny

Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men who Stole the World by Nicholas Shaxson