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An innovative history of British youth culture during the 1970s and 1980s, charting the full spectrum of punk's cultural development.
Interest in the Labour Party remains high, particularly following the unprecedented election of a third successive Labour government and amidst the on-going controversies that surround the New Labour project. Increasingly, the ideological basis of the Labour Party has come under scrutiny, with some commentators and party members emphasizing progressive traditions within the party, whilst others refer back to the trade union foundation of Labour. This volume brings together a group of scholars working within the field of labour history to consider the various elements that influenced the early Labour Party from its formation into the 1930s. The party's association with the trade union movement is explored through the railwaymen and mineworkers' unions, while further contributions assess the different ways in which the Independent Labour Party, the co-operative movement, liberalism, Christianity and the local party branches helped lay the foundations for Labour's growth from a parliamentary pressure group to a party of government.
This book traces the varied development of the far right in Britain from the formation of the National Front in 1967 to the present day. Experts draw on a range of disciplinary and methodological perspectives to provide a rich and detailed account of the evolution of the various strands of the contemporary far right over the course of the last fifty years. The book examines a broad range of subjects, including Holocaust denial, neo-Nazi groupuscularity, transnational activities, ideology, cultural engagement, homosexuality, gender and activist mobilisation. It also includes a detailed literature review. This book is essential reading for students of fascism, racism and contemporary British cultural and political history.
In 1906, a confident Labour Party felt that it was already rattling the governing classes. Its campaigning cartoon, which gives this book its title, showed the party wielding an axe towards the gates of Parliament, cutting through the special interests protecting the old system to aid the working classes. What followed was the remarkable transformation of a parliamentary pressure group into a credible governing force. The inter-war years were a crucial stage in the development of the Labour Party as it grew from pressure group status, to national opposition, to party of government. At the end of the Great War (1914-1918) Labour had a developing national organisation and a fledgling constitut...
This is the first full-length study of the organization that incubated Britain's most provocative and successful fascist movement. Exploring Sir Oswald Mosley's secession from Labour, his evolving politics and his eventual embrace of fascism, this book examines the process by which he transformed from Labour politician to fascist.
Ripped, torn and cut offers a collection of original essays exploring the motivations behind - and the politics within - the multitude of fanzines that emerged in the wake of British punk from 1976. Sniffin' Glue (1976-77), Mark Perry's iconic punk fanzine, was but the first of many, paving the way for hundreds of home-made magazines to be cut and pasted in bedrooms across the UK. From these, glimpses into provincial cultures, teenage style wars and formative political ideas may be gleaned. An alternative history, away from the often-condescending glare of London's media and music industry, can be formulated, drawn from such titles as Ripped & Torn, Brass Lip, City Fun, Vague, Kill Your Pet Puppy, Toxic Grafity, Hungry Beat and Hard as Nails. The first book of its kind, this collection reveals the contested nature of punk's cultural politics by turning the pages of a vibrant underground press.
This book explores the history of reggae in modern Britain from the time it emerged as a cultural force in the 1970s. As basslines from Jamaica reverberated across the Atlantic, so they were received and transmitted by the UK’s Afro-Caribbean community. From roots to lovers’ rock, from deejays harnessing the dancehall crowd to dub poets reporting back from the socio-economic front line, British reggae soundtracked the inner-city experience of black youth. In time, reggae’s influence permeated the wider culture, informing the sounds and the language of popular music whilst also retaining a connection to the street-level sound systems, clubs and centres that provided space to create, protest and innovate. This book is therefore a testament to struggle and ingenuity, a collection of essays tracing reggae’s importance to both the culture and the politics of late twentieth and early twenty-first century Britain.
A major study of the Communist party of Great Britain between the wars, when it adopted the military strategy of class against class, in its struggle to be the effective alternative to both the Labour Party and the TUC. This revisionary study, based on newly-discovered material in the Manchester archive of the Communist Party, shows that far from losing influence and being driven to the brink of collapse, the CPGB then consolidated its position, led national hunger marches and organized social and cultural events, while membership grew and the party developed as an effective and valued body in the pantheon of leftwing British politics.
This collection explores how the British left has interacted with the ‘Irish question’ throughout the twentieth century, the left’s expression of solidarity with Irish republicanism and relationships built with Irish political movements. Throughout the twentieth century, the British left expressed, to varying degrees, solidarity with Irish republicanism and fostered links with republican, nationalist, socialist and labour groups in Ireland. Although this peaked with the Irish Revolution from 1916 to 1923 and during the ‘Troubles’ in the 1970s–80s, this collection shows that the British left sought to build relationships with their Irish counterparts (in both the North and South) from the Edwardian to Thatcherite period. However these relationships were much more fraught and often reflected an imperial dynamic, which hindered political action at different stages during the century. This collection explores various stages in Irish political history where the British left attempted to engage with what was happening across the Irish Sea. The chapters in this book were originally published in the journal, Contemporary British History.
Punk is one of the most fiercely debated post-war subcultures. Despite the attention surrounding the movement's origins, analyses of punk have been drawn predominantly from a now well-trodden historical narrative. The Aesthetic of Our Anger explores the development of the anarcho-punk scene from the late 1970s, raising questions over the origins of the scene, its form, structure and cultural significance examining how anarcho-punk moved away from using 'anarchy' as mere connotation and shock value towards an approach that served to make punk a threat again