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Once the heartland of British labour history, trade unionism has been marginalised in much recent scholarship. In a critical survey from the earliest times to the nineteenth century, this book argues for its reinstatement. Trade unionism is shown to be both intrinsically important and to provide a window onto the broader historical landscape; the evolution of trade union principles and practices is traced from the seventeenth century to mid-Victorian times. Underpinning this survey is an explanation of labour organisation that reaches back to the fourteenth century. Throughout, the emphasis is on trade union mentality and ideology, rather than on institutional history. There is a critical focus on the politics of gender, on the demarcation of skill and on the role of the state in labour issues. New insight is provided on the long-debated question of trade unions’ contribution to social and political unrest from the era of the French Revolution through to Chartism.
This book traces the development of agrarian ideas from the 1770s to Chartism and beyond, exploring why, in an era of industrialization and urban growth, land remained one of the major issues in British popular politics. Arguing that agrarianism was an integral part of the working-class experience and radical politics, Chase analyzes the relationship between "land consciousness" and early socialism, the attempts to create alternative communities, and contemporary perceptions of nature and the environment. He also provides the most extensive study to date of the influence of Thomas Spence and his followers, and throws new light on the Spa fields and Cato Street conspiracies, charting their contribution to the radicalism of the period.
The Houndsditch murders in 1910 and the ensuing Siege of Sidney Street, in which Latvian anarchists took on Winston Churchill and the British Army, have entered into folklore. But no-one ever accounted for the mysterious Peter the Painter, supposed to be the leader of the gang and to have escaped during the battle. This book solves the mystery.
The Hernhill Rising of 1838 was the last battle fought on English soil, the last revolt against the New Poor Law, and England's millenarian rising. Fought in a corner of rural Kent, it was also the last rising of the agricultural laborers. In this comprehensive analysis, Reay draws on intensive research in local archives to provide a critical study of the background of the rising and its social context. He presents a unique casestudy of popular mobilization in nineteenth-century England, producing a vivid portrait of the daily existence of the farm laborer and life in the village. Exploring the wider context of agrarian relations, rural reform, protest, and control, this study will be of special interest to students and scholars of modern British history and social, agrarian, and local historians.
In The Origins of Collective Decision Making, Andy Blunden identifies three paradigms of collective decision making – Counsel, Majority and Consensus, discovers their origins in traditional, medieval and modern times, and traces their evolution over centuries up to the present. The study reveals that these three paradigms have an ethical foundation, deeply rooted in historical experiences. The narrative takes the reader into the very moments when individual leaders and organisers made the crucial developments in white heat of critical moments in history, such as the English Revolution of the 1640s, the Chartist Movement of the 1840s and the early Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. This history provides a valuable resource for resolving current social movement conflict over decision making.
"Guns are relational: they can be tools of violence or of protection. Bullets injure individuals and communities, creating collective damage. In the United States, gun violence has reached alarming levels, but the effects of firearms sold in this country don't stop at its borders. American guns have torn the social fabric of Mexican society in ways that have entangled the lives of citizens on both sides of the border-Mexicans and Americans-in a vicious circle of violence. While migrants and refugees are fleeing north, seeking safety in the United States, Exit Wounds follows the guns going south, from dealers in Arizona and Texas to crime scenes in Mexico. Through stories of people who live and work with guns on both sides of the border and either side of the law-a businessman who smuggles guns, a girl who becomes a trained assassin, two federal agents who try to stop gun traffickers, a journalist reporting on organized crime-the book grapples with US complicity in violence south of the border and examines the impact of American guns on both countries"--
The Salvation Army is nowadays viewed with fondness, but William Booth's evangelical crusade of the 1880s and early 1890s sparked violent riots led by an opposition group, the Skeleton Army. These riots caused destruction to property, injury to many people and, on occasion, loss of life. Spreading across the South and West of England, the Skeleton Army's aim was to eject Salvationists from their towns. Rather than facing repercussions themselves, however, it was often the peaceful parading Salvationists who were imprisoned. In With God on Their Side, James Gardner follows the spread of violence in the context of the popular conservatism of late-Victorian England, with close study of particular towns creating a rich tapestry of historical narrative that will be of interest to scholars and enthusiasts alike. The motives and actions of both groups are considered, along with the subsequent shift in the Salvation Army's focus towards social welfare. It is this shift that enabled the organisation to grow into the treasured charity we know today, and helped transform William Booth from one of the most vilified men of the nineteenth century into its saint.
Explores life in the Victorian police force from the time of Jack the Ripper, from training to discovering a murder.
This four volume collection looks at the essential issues concerning crime and punishment in the long nineteenth-century. Through the presentation of primary source documents, it explores the development of a modern pattern of crime and a modern system of penal policy and practice, illustrating the shift from eighteenth century patterns of crime (including the clash between rural custom and law) and punishment (unsystematic, selective, public, and body-centred) to nineteenth century patterns of crime (urban, increasing, and a metaphor for social instability and moral decay, before a remarkable late-century crime decline) and punishment (reform-minded, soul-centred, penetrative, uniform and p...
Deposing Monarchs analyses depositions in Northern Europe between 1500 and 1700 as a type of frequent political conflict which allows to present new ideas on early modern state formation, monarchy, and the conventions of royal rulership. The book revises earlier conceptualizations of depositions as isolated, unique events that emerged in the context of national historiographies. An examination of the official legitimations of depositions reveals that in times of crisis, concepts of tradition, rule of law, and political consensus are much more influential than the divine right of kings. Tracing the similarities and differences of depositions in Northern Europe transnationally and diachronical...