Twentieth Century British History - recent issues

Labour and the Politics of Internationalism, 1906-1914

McNeilly, E. — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:02:12 PST

Historians have traditionally characterized the early Labour party as an insular, ‘labourist’ organization out of sync with the mainstream of European socialism and indifferent to foreign affairs and internationalism. However, this perspective is deeply misguided, as Labour's ‘Big Four’—MacDonald, Snowden, Hardie and Glasier—used their positions of authority in the Labour Party, Independent Labour Party (ILP) and the British Section of the International to place foreign policy and socialist internationalism at the heart of their efforts to further the Labour alliance. This article explores two aspects of the ‘politics of internationalism’: first, the Labour leadership's use of socialist internationalism to legitimate the Labour alliance with trade unions in the face of criticism from the ILP left wing; second, the party's portrayal of itself as a more faithful exponent of a Gladstonian moral foreign policy than the Liberal government. Labour and the ILP were crucial allies in the revisionist and pragmatic wing of the Second International, and these ties allowed the ‘Big Four’ to portray the Labour coalition as in keeping with democratic socialist strategy in Europe. At the same time, historians should explore the possibility that Labour's parliamentary and public interventions on foreign affairs aimed to undermine Liberalism on its left flank by exploiting radical concerns over the Liberal government's foreign policy, particularly its dealings with Russia, to portray Labour as the defenders of the Gladstonian tradition in foreign affairs and, hence, as the only conscionable choice for progressives in the twentieth century.

From Danger and Motherhood to Health and Beauty: Health Advice for the Factory Girl in Early Twentieth-Century Britain

Long, V., Marland, H. — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:02:12 PST

A survey of government reports and the archives and journals of other agencies interested in industrial health in early twentieth-century Britain has led us to conclude that, in addition to apprehension about the potentially harmful impact of industrial work on the reproductive health of women, there was a great deal of interest in the health of young, unmarried girls in the workplace, particularly the factory. Adopting a broader time frame, we suggest that the First World War, with its emphasis on the reproductive health of women, was an anomalous experience in a broader trend which stressed the growing acceptability of women's work within industry. Concern with girls' health and welfare embraced hygiene, diet, exercise, recreation, fashion and beauty within and outside of the workplace, as well as the impact of the boredom and monotony associated with industrial work. The health problems of young women workers tended to be associated with behaviour and environment rather than biology, as were anxieties about the impact of work on morals, habits and character. Efforts to ensure that young female factory workers would be equipped to take their place as citizens and parents, we argue, often dovetailed rather than diverged with the ‘boy labour’ question.

Inventing David Low: Self-Presentation, Caricature and the Culture of Journalism in Mid-Twentieth Century Britain

Hampton, M. — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:02:12 PST

This essay examines cartoonist David Low’s various public self-portrayals between the 1920s and 1950s both as a study of Low’s self-invention as a public figure and as a window into twentieth-century understandings of the function of journalists. These self-portrayals included both relatively abstract discussions of caricature as a craft, various autobiographical writings (culminating in Low’s Autobiography (1957)), and self-caricatures in cartoons. Collectively, they reveal that, despite attempts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to transform journalism into a well-defined profession or a trade, the narrative of journalism as an open and fluid profession remained salient. At the same time, journalism had gained sufficient prestige that even a caricaturist attempting to project himself as an ‘artist’ found it compelling to argue that his artistry enabled his practice as a ‘journalist’. Low’s portrayal of the ‘artist as journalist’, moreover, championed a particular vision of journalism, an ‘educational’ ideal of the press that appeared increasingly anachronistic in the age of the mass-circulation press. In Low’s telling, caricature offered a way of conveying complex political positions in an ostensibly simple medium. Alongside the advantages of his medium, Low claimed personal qualities, chiefly an antipodean independence and common sense, that accounted for his success as a journalist.

Sincere and Reasonable Men? The Origins of the National Council for Civil Liberties

Clark, J. — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:02:12 PST

The National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL; now known as Liberty) was conceived in the putative anti-left policing of political protest in 1934 but it was actually the result of a chance encounter in the press between Ronald Kidd and Lord Trenchard, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, at the end of 1933. Kidd’s campaign, which centred on the policies and actions of the Commissioner, attracted prominent cross-party backing for a civil liberties pressure group. At the same time, associations with the radical left and ‘fellow travelling’ community ensured the NCCL would be regarded by the authorities as a communist front organization and would fall under the assiduous watch of the security services. Nonetheless, the NCCL became a rallying point for disparate concerns for police powers and civil liberties and contributed to the inter-war culture of non-party politics.

The Progressive Professionals: The National Council for Civil Liberties and the Politics of Activism in the 1960s

Moores, C. — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:02:12 PST

This article examines the work of the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) in the 1960s. It examines how the activists and policies of the NCCL are accommodated within existing frameworks of political and social activism. Within this period the Council amalgamated traditional civil liberties concerns alongside a new human rights agenda seen as characteristic of emerging new social movements. This politics was pursued in a more formal manner than that envisioned by social movement theorists and was conducted by activists more representative of a narrative stressing the rise of the professional society than that of the middle class radical. The NCCL was representative of the activism of ‘progressive professionals’ occupying a space somewhere between the pressure group and the social movement. These expert activists can be found in a range of organizations in which they used the skills, expertise, knowledge and respectability associated with professional socio-economic status to promote and advocate left wing causes.

Juke Box Britain: Americanisation and Youth Culture, 1945-60. By Adrian Horn.

Moran, J. — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:02:12 PST

Constructing the Monolith: The United States, Great Britain, and International Communism, 1945-1950. By Marc J. Selverstone.

Wilford, H. — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:02:12 PST

Harold Wilson's Cold War: The Labour Government and East-West Politics, 1964-1970. By Geraint Hughes.

Daddow, O. — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:02:12 PST

Heroin: The Treatment of Addiction in Twentieth-Century Britain. By Alex Mold.

Weinhauer, K. — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:02:12 PST

NGOs in Contemporary Britain: Non-State Actors in Society and Politics since 1945. Edited by Nick Crowson, Matthew Hilton and James McKay.

Nehring, H. — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:02:12 PST

100 Years of State Pension: Learning from the Past. By Tony Salter, Andrew Bryans, Colin Redman and Martin Hewitt.

Pemberton, H. — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:02:12 PST

The Politics of Housing: Power, Consumers and Urban Culture. By Peter Shapely.

Clapson, M. — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:02:12 PST

From Jack Tar to Union Jack: Representing Naval Manhood in the British Empire, 1870-1918. By Mary A. Conley.

O'hara, G. — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:02:12 PST

Feminism and Criminal Justice: A Historical Perspective. By Anne Logan.

Seal, L. — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:02:12 PST

The Future of Class in History: What's Left of the Social? By Geoff Eley and Keith Nield.

Maslen, J. — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:02:12 PST

Petticoat Diplomacy: The Admission of Women to the British Foreign Service, c.1919-1946

McCarthy, H. — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 05:54:53 PDT

This article tells the story of the campaign to admit women to Britain's Foreign Service on equal terms with men. Although the principle of equal opportunity was established in the Home Civil Service as a result of legislation passed in 1919, posts in the Diplomatic and Consular Services remained reserved to men until 1946. As part of their broader attempts to feminize public life following female enfranchisement, women's societies argued forcefully for equality, marshalling evidence of British women's impressive past performance as overseas missionaries, medics and explorers, and their quasi-diplomatic experience at the League of Nations. The Foreign Office, however, remained resolutely opposed to female diplomats on the grounds that they would not be taken seriously by foreign governments and would create insurmountable administrative difficulties, particularly in relation to their marital status. The Second World War transformed the debate by extending the opportunities available to women to serve the state overseas and by renewing pressure on the Foreign Office to modernize its working practices. As a result, women became eligible for the Foreign Service, although a marriage bar was enforced together with a ten per cent cap on female recruitment. This hitherto neglected aspect of women's employment in Britain offers fresh insights into feminist activism and the gendered practices of the British state, together with a new perspective on the modernization of the Foreign Office in the first half of the twentieth century.

Between Less Eligibility and the NHS: The Changing Place of Poor Law Hospitals in England and Wales, 1929-39

Levene, A. — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 05:54:53 PDT

In 1929, the Local Government Act broke up the apparatus of the Poor Law Guardians and Unions, and transferred responsibility for the care of the poor to local councils. In theory, the period between the passing of the Act and the formation of the National Health Service witnessed a large-scale reclassification of the sick poor as patients rather than paupers. In reality, as this investigation of contemporary judgements of hospital quality and bed and staff numbers in English and Welsh county boroughs shows, the national picture was very varied at the local level. Local and sometimes regional traditions of care, finance and council priorities had a large influence on the ongoing development of a unified medical service which included the poor. In the best case scenario, hospitals were classified by patient type, and the principle of ‘less eligibility’ was discarded. Elsewhere, economic status continued to direct medical treatment, but in almost all cases, the chronic and elderly poor were more likely to remain in low-quality and unmodernized buildings than the acutely sick. The investigation highlights the disjuncture between the changed vision for the sick poor and its patchy enforcement on the ground.

TCBH Postgraduate Essay Prize Winner for 2008: Doing The Lambeth Walk: Novelty Dances and the British Nation

Abra, A. — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 05:54:53 PDT

In the late 1930s, the Mecca organization, the company which controlled Britain's largest chain of dance halls, released five novelty dances that were explicitly promoted for being British, both in terms of their origin and character. Through song lyrics and thematic content, the Lambeth Walk, Chestnut Tree, Park Parade, Handsome Territorial and Knees Up, Mother Brown celebrated Britain's heritage and folk tradition, ‘ordinary’ people and democratic spirit, and landscape and natural beauty. However, sitting at the centre of the commercial dance hall industry, Mecca's profit-driven motives in creating and promoting its novelty dances must be considered, and this article will argue that the company effectively ‘produced the nation’ for mass consumption. The discussion will further show that in performing the dances, the British public had considerable agency in determining which, if any, of Mecca's ideas about the nation they would accept and embody. The dances thus became a site in which Mecca and the public negotiated and expressed ideas about national identity that were consonant with the inter-war period, but which also anticipated the transition to wartime understandings of the nation.

Rethinking the Beveridge Strait-jacket: The Labour Party, the TUC and the Introduction of Superannuation

Nijhuis, D. O. — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 05:54:53 PDT

This article highlights the role of the trade union movement in the failure of Labour's attempts to create adequate state pension benefits during the first half of the post-war period. It argues that union opposition to attempts to redistribute income among workers made it impossible for Labour to achieve a redistributive contributory solution for the shortcomings of the state pension. The initial choice of the ‘flawed’ Beveridge solution for social security, the failure of consecutive attempts to introduce national superannuation and the resulting inadequacy of state pension provision in the United Kingdom, can be understood only once we realize the importance of this opposition.

The Digital World and the Future of Historical Research

Hampshire, E., Johnson, V. — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 05:54:53 PDT

Historians need to recognize the profound changes in the records currently being created by businesses, government and private individuals, and the implications this will have on the way they undertake research with these records in the future. An electronic revolution has already occurred over the last decade in access to records, but the records accessed either remained non-electronic in themselves, or were surrogates of non-electronic originals. The new challenge relates to the ‘born-digital’ emails, word processed documents, spreadsheets and databases that will only ever exist electronically. This will affect the application of legislation, the selection and destruction of records, their preservation, their access and even the nature and meaning of the veracity of the record. Historians need not only to recognize how this affects them, but also to become involved in these developments.

Downing Street Diary: Volume Two. By Bernard Donoughue.

McNally, T. — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 05:54:53 PDT

The Flyer: British Culture and the Royal Air Force 1939-1945. By Martin Francis.

Rose, S. O. — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 05:54:53 PDT

Twentieth Century Diplomacy: A Case Study of British Practice, 1963-1976. By John W. Young.

Ashton, N. J. — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 05:54:53 PDT

Guarantee of Peace: The League of Nations in British Policy, 1914-1925. By Peter J. Yearwood.

Pedersen, S. — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 05:54:53 PDT

Aftershocks: Politics and Trauma in Britain, 1918-1931. By Susan Kingsley Kent.

Beers, L. — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 05:54:53 PDT

The Secret Battle: Emotional Survival in the Great War. By Michael Roper.

Doan, L. — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 05:54:53 PDT

Coal Strikes on the Home Front: Miners' Militancy and Socialist Politics in the Second World War

Gildart, K. — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:47:33 PDT

The impact of the Second World War on British society has provided fertile ground for historical research. Historians have questioned the once orthodox view of the ‘people's war’ and pointed to divisions across social classes. This article extends such analyses by examing political factionalism within the trade union movement. Through an examination of miners’ strikes it explores socialist traditions, cultures and organizations in the coal industry. The coalfields of South Wales, Scotland and Cumberland provide case studies that show that the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain (MFGB) contained a variety of socialist currents that were in conflict in terms of attitudes to the war, the organizational structure of the industry and the use of the strike weapon in a period of national crisis. The historiography of industrial relations during the Second World War has tended to concentrate on the politics of the Labour and Communist parties. The case studies show that the Independent Labour Party (ILP) was also significant as a vehicle for socialist ideas and reflecting miners’ discontent. The ILP articulated an industrial strategy that for a short period (1941–44) challenged the hegemony of Labour and Communist leaderships within particular districts of the MFGB.

Workplace Conflict and the Origins of the 1984-85 Miners' Strike in Scotland

Phillips, J. — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:47:33 PDT

Literature on the 1984–5 miners’ strike in Britain tends to be dominated by examination of peak level relations between the Conservative government, the National Coal Board and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). The strike is usually depicted as being illegitimately imposed, without a national ballot, on the industry and the miners by the NUM leadership. This article develops a more rounded perspective on the strike, by locating its origins in workplace conflict which had been steadily escalating in the early 1980s in the Scottish coalfields. A significant portion of Scottish miners, anxious about employment prospects and angry about managerial incursions on established joint industrial regulation of daily mining operations, pushed their union towards a more militant position. This subverts the conventional picture of the strike as a top-down phenomenon. In this respect events in Scotland, which rarely feature in established literature, were in fact extremely important, shaping the national strike that emerged from the workforce's opposition to managerial authoritarianism as well as the closure of ‘uneconomic’ pits. The peak level context of deteriorating relations and pit level details of incrementally intensifying workplace conflict are established through industry and trade union records and press accounts.

'To Try and Find Out What is being Done to Whom, by Whom and with What Results': The Creation of Psychosexual Counselling Policy in England, 1972-1979

Irwin, R. — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:47:33 PDT

Although neglected in recent sexual health policy, psychosexual services were briefly during the 1970s the focus of a reluctant policy initiative by the Department of Health and Social Security. In part, a response to the (ultimately short-lived) optimism generated by the emergence of sex therapy, this policy initiative was also precipitated by the transfer of the Family Planning Association (FPA)'s clinical services into the National Health Service. The Department's policy on psychosexual counselling—a combination of information-gathering and the funding of experimental training schemes—enabled it to avoid making any commitment to the expansion of psychosexual services until responsibility for such decisions could be delegated downwards to a newly created local administrative level of the health service. It also helped to maintain a ‘mixed economy’ of providers of psychosexual services drawn from the statutory and non-statutory sectors, albeit with the National Marriage Guidance Council supplanting the role of the FPA in the voluntary sector. Analysis of this policy reveals how, at a time of rising social expectations about the treatment of sexual problems, the Department successfully averted any significant incursion of sexology and innovative psychological therapies into the health service.

Searching for the Soul of Russia: British Perceptions of Russia during the First World War

Hughes, M. — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:47:33 PDT

British attitudes towards tsarist Russia were often extremely negative before the First World War, despite the Anglo-Russian entente of 1907, since the country was still widely seen as a backward land ruled over by an autocratic government. The outbreak of war meant that Russia became a vital ally for Britain in the struggle with the central powers. Its presence in the allied coalition nevertheless made it difficult to present the conflict as a fight for liberty and democracy against Prussian militarism. Although official propaganda focused on presenting a positive image of Britain to other countries, numerous informal efforts were made during the war to promote a more positive image of Russia to a British audience. Writers and journalists such as Stephen Graham and J.W. Mackail built on the growing pre-war interest in Russian literature and ballet to suggest that the country had its own vibrant culture, and could not simply be rejected as a backward nation, but was instead a suitable ally in the war against Germany and Austro-Hungary. There was nevertheless always a tension between those who believed that the vibrancy of Russian culture existed despite the autocratic government of Nicholas II, and other ambassadors of the Russian ‘soul’ who feared that political liberalization would in time undermine a valuable Russian exceptionalism.

Thrice Denied: 'Declinism' as a Recurrent Theme in British History in the Long Twentieth Century

Tomlinson, J. — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:47:34 PDT

From around 1870, when Britain reached the apogee of its industrial predominance, the country has experienced relative decline as the size of its economy in relation to the rest of the world has fallen. This inescapable process has been accompanied by a recurrent politics and history which have interpreted this decline not as the result of the inevitable competitive rough and tumble development of global capitalism, but as evidence of pathological failings in British society, creating a persistent ‘declinist’ underpinning to accounts of modern Britain. These have suggested that British society has had profound failings in almost all areas—economic, technological, political and cultural. The pattern has been for declinist narratives to be initiated in the political arena, then to be taken up by historians, to be followed in turn by historians rebuttals of such arguments. This pattern can be discerned in the history and historiography of the 1870–1914 period, the inter-war years, and for post-1945. However, it has been strongest for the post-war period, and especially for the years since the Thatcher government of the 1980s. This article outlines these developments, and offers a critique of such declinism as a useful way to understand twentieth century Britain. It suggests that historians have too often in the past based their approach on contemporary, highly politicized and polemical discourses, but that in a number of areas work is now being published which allows us to construct more productive narratives for this period.

The Two Cultures Controversy: Science, Literature, and Cultural Politics in Postwar Britain. By Guy Ortolano.

Collini, S. — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:47:34 PDT

Life on Air: A History of Radio Four. By David Hendy.

Baxendale, J. — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:47:34 PDT

Land and Nation in England: Patriotism, National Identity, and the Politics of Land, 1880-1914. By Paul Readman.

Packer, I. — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:47:34 PDT

Bloody Old Britain: O.G.S. Crawford and the Archaeology of Modern Life. By Kitty Hauser.

Anthony, S. — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:47:34 PDT

Raymond Williams: A Warrior's Tale. By Dai Smith.

Howell, D. — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:47:34 PDT

Chesterton and the Romance of Orthodoxy: The Making of GKC, 1874-1908. By William Oddie.

Stapleton, J. — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:47:34 PDT

Trials of Irish History: Genesis and Evolution of a Reappraisal 1938-2000. By Evi Gkotzaridis. * Spying on Ireland: British Intelligence and Irish Neutrality During the Second World War. By Eunan O'Halpin.

Girvin, B. — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:47:34 PDT

Consuming History: Historians and Heritage in Contemporary Popular Culture. By Jerome de Groot.

Fleming, N.C. — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:47:34 PDT

Behind Enemy Lines: Gender, Passing and the Special Operations Executive in the Second World War. By Juliette Pattinson.

Fox, J. — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:47:34 PDT

Gender, Professions and Discourse: Early Twentieth-Century Women's Autobiography. By Christine Etherington-Wright.

McCarthy, H. — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:47:34 PDT

Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones. By Carole Boyce Davies.

Perry, K. H. — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:47:34 PDT

The Labour Party and Constitutional Reform: A History of Constitutional Conservatism. By Peter Dorey.

Crowley, M. J — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:47:34 PDT

Reginald McKenna: Financier among Statesmen, 1863-1916. By Martin Farr.

Godden, C. — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:47:34 PDT