"Historians of political history are fascinated by the rise and fall of political parties and, for twentieth-century Britain, most obviously the rise of the Labour Party and the decline of the Liberal Party. What is often overlooked in this political development is the work of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) which was a formative influence in the growth of the political Labour movement and its leaders in the late nineteenth century and the early to mid-twentieth century. The ILP supplied the Labour Party with some of its leading political figures, such as Ramsay MacDonald, and moved the Labour Party along the road of parliamentary socialism. However, divided over the First World War and challenged by the Labour Party becoming socialist in 1918, it had to face the fact that it was no longer the major parliamentary socialist party in Britain"--

Making the Revolution Global shows how black radicals transformed socialist politics in Britain in the years before decolonisation. African and Caribbean activist-intellectuals, such as Amy Ashwood Garvey, C.L.R. James, Jomo Kenyatta, Kwame Nkrumah and George Padmore, came to Britain during the 1930s and 1940s and intervened in debates about capitalism, imperialism, fascism and war. They consistently argued that any path towards international socialism must have colonial liberation at its heart. Although their ideas were met with opposition from many on the British Left, they convinced significant sections of the movement of the revolutionary potential of colonised peoples. By centring the entanglements between black radicals and the wider British socialist movement, Theo Williams casts new light on responses to the 1935 Italian invasion of Ethiopia, the 1945 Fifth Pan-African Congress, and a wealth of other events and phenomena. In doing so, he showcases a revolutionary tradition that, as illustrated by the global Black Lives Matter demonstrations of 2020, is still relevant today.

After 13 years in power, Labour suddenly returned to being the party of opposition in 2010. This new edition of A History of the British Labour Party brings us up-to-date, examining Gordon Brown's period in office and the Labour Party under the leadership of Ed Miliband. Andrew Thorpe's study has been the leading single-volume text on the Labour Party since its first edition in 1997 and has now been thoroughly revised throughout to include new approaches. This new edition: - Covers the entirety of the party's history, from 1900 to 2014. - Examines the reasons for the party's formation, and its aims. - Analyses the party's successes and failures, including its rise to second party status and remarkable recovery from its problems in the 1980s. - Discusses the main events and personalities of the Labour Party, such as MacDonald, Attlee, Wilson, Blair and Brown. With his approachable style and authoritative manner, Thorpe has created essential reading for students of political history, and anyone wishing to familiarise themselves with the history and development of one of Britain's major political parties.

The relations of Great Britain and its Dominions significantly influenced the development of the British Empire in the late 19th and the first third of the 20th century. The mutual attitude to the constitutional issues that Dominion and British leaders have continually discussed at Colonial and Imperial Conferences respectively was one of the main aspects forming the links between the mother country and the autonomous overseas territories. This volume therefore focuses on the key period when the importance of the Dominions not only increased within the Empire itself, but also in the sphere of the international relations, and the Dominions gained the opportunity to influence the forming of the Imperial foreign policy. During the first third of the 20th century, the British Empire gradually transformed into the British Commonwealth of Nations, in which the importance of Dominions excelled. The work is based on the study of unreleased sources from British archives, a large number of published documents and extensive relevant literature.

“Council democracy” is a particular form of democratic socialism that strives towards democratic self-governance on the basis of active, free, and associated individuals working cooperatively within a federated council system. Both in political practice and in social theory, “council democracy” has resurfaced periodically in the past, most notably in the interwar period, in the “long 1960s,” and since the turn of the 21st century. This book offers a novel theoretical and methodological approach to the study of “council democracy.” It focuses on the processes that led to the emergence of two of the foundational and most radical instances of “council democratic” movements in Germany during the German Revolution (1918-1919) and in Italy during the biennio rosso (1919-1920). With all their diversities, ambiguities, and shortcomings, these movements, in varying degrees, sought democratic alternatives to autocratic relations, from local to state levels, and to economic relations, from workplace to national levels. The book shows how the processes through which state-led war mobilization transformed the contours of class struggle laid the ground for the emergence of “council democratic” movements with specific characteristics in Germany and Italy and not in the United Kingdom and France.

A political and economic analysis of the history of working people in Alberta.

The most comprehensive bibliography of printed books, articles, and standard texts on twentieth-century England.

In his day, "Josh" Wedgwood was one of Britain's best-known and most outspoken Radical politicians. He served in three wars, and, in a Parliamentary career lasting from 1906 to 1943, first with the Liberals, and then with Labour, he fought to uphold personal liberty and to limit the power of the state. Instead of the collectivism of socialists or social imperialists, Wedgwood advocated a Radical vision of Victorian Individualism as the solution to the problems of social inequality at home and growing threats abroad that Britain faced in the first half of the twentieth century. His support of individual freedom, a redistribution of landowner's wealth, and a voluntary and democratic British Empire received only limited support in his own lifetime, but he fought for them with vigour and passion throughout his career. This study of his life throws new light upon some of the defining ideological and policy issues of the most turbulent period of modern British history. Paul Mulvey teaches at the London School of Economics.

Transport and mobility history is one of the most exciting areas of historical research at the present. As its scope expands, it entices scholars working in fields as diverse as historical geography, management studies, sociology, industrial archaeology, cultural and literary studies, ethnography, and anthropology, as well as those working in various strands of historical research. Containing contributions exploring transport and mobility history after 1800, this volume of eclectic chapters shows how new subjects are explored, new sources are being encountered, considered and used, and how increasingly diverse and innovative methodological lenses are applied to both new and well-travelled subjects. From canals to Concorde, from freight to passengers, from screen to literature, the contents of this book will therefore not only demonstrate the cutting edge of research, and deliver valuable new insights into the role and position of transport and mobility in history, but it will also evidence the many and varied directions and possibilities that exist for the field’s future development.