Originally published in 1954, this is the first full-length account of the history of the Working Men’s College in St.Pancras, London. One hundred and fifty years on from its foundation in 1854, it is the oldest adult educational institute in the country. Self-governing and self-financing, it is a rich part of London’s social history. The college stands out as a distinctive monument of the voluntary social service founded by the Victorians, unchanged in all its essentials yet adapting itself to the demands of each generation of students and finding voluntary and unpaid teachers to continue its tradition.

The Working Men’s College (WMC) is the UK’s oldest continuously running adult education institution, and a very distinctive example of the British adult education tradition. This volume brings the history of the WMC up to date, following the 1954 centenary history by JFC Harrison. Contributions from a range of professional educators explore topics such as the philosophy of the College, the issue of women’s entry, college governance and the notion of community as it applies to changes in the composition of the student body. Additional features include a chapter on the architectural history of the College; an interview with Satnam Gill as the key figure who drove through crucial change at a time when the College might have died; a chapter from the latest member of a family which has been closely involved with the College over four generations; and a range of personal contributions from tutors and students from the past six decades. This book will be of interest to historians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, all those in UK adult education, along with local Camden/London community and political groups and the WMC’s extensive family of former students and tutors.

Russia in World History uses a comparative framework to understand Russian history in a global context. The book challenges the idea of Russia as an outlier of European civilization by examining select themes in modern Russian history alongside cases drawn from the British Empire. Choi Chatterjee analyzes the concepts of nation and empire, selfhood and subjectivity, socialism and capitalism, and revolution and the world order in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. In doing so she rethinks many historical narratives that bluntly posit a liberal West against a repressive, authoritarian Russia. Instead Chatterjee argues for a wider perspective which reveals that imperial practices relating to the appropriation of human and natural resources were shared across European empires, both East and West. Incorporating the stories of famous thinkers, such as Leo Tolstoy, Emma Goldman, Wangari Maathai, Arundhati Roy, among others. This unique interpretation of modern Russia is knitted together from the varied lives and experiences of those individuals who challenged the status quo and promoted a different way of thinking. This is a ground-breaking book with big and provocative ideas about the history of the modern world, and will be vital reading for students of both modern Russian and world history.