Dr Matthew Roberts looks at the relevance of emotions to labour history, and explains why he challenges the idea that the political sphere was an arena of reason in which feelings had no part to play Continue reading What might labour historians do with emotions?
Far from being ‘ruffians officered by gentlemen’, the British army of the nineteenth century was made up of a typical cross-section of working-class men whose military lives mirrored those of the civilian working class, says Nick Mansfield, author of Soldiers as Workers – Class, Employment, Conflict and the Nineteenth-Century Military. As a labour historian, I have always retained a slightly odd interest in military history. … Continue reading Soldiers as workers: working-class life and conflict in the British army of the nineteenth century
Histories of the transition from war to peace at the end of the First World War tend to focus on the role of statesmen and imperial powers. Now a new book in the Studies in Labour History Series aims to re-examine the year 1919 from below, as its editor, Dr Matt Perry explains Continue reading The Global Challenge of Peace: introducing book 17 in the Studies in Labour History series
Labour’s European policies in the Wilson era were shaped not just in Whitehall but by formal and informal links between key players in the party and its Danish counterpart, says Dr Matt Broad, author of Harold Wilson, Denmark and the Making of Labour European Policy, 1958–72 Continue reading The Copenhagen connection: Harold Wilson, Jens Otto Krag and Labour European policy
What a day to be a headline writer on a Labour newspaper. On 23 January 1924, the TUC-owned Daily Herald led its news coverage with the formation of the first ever Labour government. But big as it was, the story had to share the front page with news from Moscow of the sudden death of Lenin. Born out of a strike bulletin first published by … Continue reading Daily Herald’s front page reports the first Labour government and the death of Lenin
Dr Hannah Parker reports on 10th International Congress for Central and East European Studies Continue reading Strategies of letter-writing and letter-reading in the 1920s-1930s Soviet Union
The Labour Party began to recruit individual members in 1918, and youth sections appeared in a handful of divisional party organisations soon afterwards. But it was not until 1924 that the National Executive Committee formalised their existence and established a Labour Party League of Youth to act as a national co-ordinating body – albeit one with strictly limited representation and voice within the party’s structures. … Continue reading Labour Party League of Youth members’ badge
As a school leaver, Keith Laybourn was told, “Don’t be too ambitious”. This year, the SSLH President marks thirty years as a professor and fifty as an academic at the University of Huddersfield. We asked him about a lifetime in labour history Continue reading Fifty years a labour historian: SSLH President Keith Laybourn on half a century at Huddersfield University
he Working Class Movement Library offers an impressive and extensive series of talks, all of which are live-streamed and subsequently made available on its YouTube channel. Its autumn 2021 series of ‘Invisible Histories’ ranges from Thomas Spence to Jayaben Desai, and from the Social Democratic Federation to Militant Continue reading Great online events at the WCML for autumn 2021
Their numbers were small but France’s revolutionary exiles were to have a significant impact on international politics, says Dr Constance Bantman, author of The French Anarchists in London, 1880-1914, now published in paperback. The history of the French anarchists exiled in London between the late 1870s and 1914 has long been treated like a footnote in the history of the French anarchist movement. Looking at … Continue reading The delights of exile: French anarchists in Victorian and Edwardian London
Society for the Study of Labour History 