The SSLH publishes the book series Studies in Labour History in association with Liverpool University Press. We also publish book reviews in our journal, the Labour History Review.
The articles below draw attention to new books, reports, pamphlets, and online publications and projects of interest to labour historians.
The Liverpool University Press summer sale is now on. LUP, the Society’s partner in publishing Labour History Review and the Studies in Labour History book series, is offering up to 50% off print and ebooks purchased on its website. Use discount code ‘27SUMMER’ at checkout. Sale ends 14th July! ☀️ See books in the Studies in Labour History book series. Go to the LUP website. Continue reading Liverpool University Press summer sale
Hugh Clegg was a founding figure of post-war British industrial relations. He defined ‘industrial democracy’ as collective bargaining with trade unions, laid the foundations for the pluralist approach to industrial relations, was a key figure in the post-war social sciences, and a major public policy player. In a new book, Trade Unions and the British Industrial Relations Crisis, Peter Ackers, Emeritus Professor in the History … Continue reading Hugh Clegg: intellectual biography of a key figure in industrial relations and labour history
The Irish Labour History Society (ILHS) embarked on an ambitious programme to mark its fiftieth anniversary involving an international conference in Dublin titled ‘Visions of Labour and Class’ and a collection of essays exploring the role of labour history in Irish historical narratives – Labour History in Irish History (reviewed in Labour History Review). Both were graced by the involvement of Irish President, Michael D. … Continue reading Visions of labour and class in Ireland and Europe: conference proceedings
A crowdfunded graphic novel on the ‘raw, intense and often shockingly violent’ fight for the right to vote has hit its funding target within a matter of days of going live. Titled COURAGE: Luddites – Peterloo – Chartists – Suffragettes, the book is the work of Polyp, the Manchester-based illustrator and cartoonist previously responsible for graphic novels on Peterloo and the life of Thomas Paine. … Continue reading From Luddites to Suffragettes: a graphic tale of the fight for the vote
Neil Horsley introduces a project documenting the repurposing of derelict textile mills across the North of England. Over the past three years I have visited, photographed and interviewed mill renovators at thirty-three mill conversions across the North of England for a project titled Mills Transformed. The focus of the project was initially on the physical aspects of building regeneration schemes but what became apparent to … Continue reading Mills Transformed: new uses for buildings that shaped the North of England
Liverpool University Press and the Marx Memorial Library & Workers’ School have been trying to make trade union history accessible again with a history of UNITE published in six cheap paperback volumes (each retails at £6.99) from 2022 onwards. We reviewed the first two volumes which covered the history of the Transport and General Workers’ Union, the core of UNITE, from 1880 to 1931 in … Continue reading UNITE the Union: a history in six volumes
Britain has experienced continual crises for half a century, argues Neville Kirk. His new book examines the development of neo-liberal globalisation from the 1970s; the financial crash and its systemic effects from 2007 to 2009; and the ‘present crisis’ beginning in 2010. Here he introduces the book and the three crises at its heart. We currently live in a period often described, since 2022, as … Continue reading British society in crisis: from 1970s globalisation to the Brexit referendum
Two more books in the Studies in Labour History series will soon be published in paperback. The series is published by the Society in association with Liverpool University Press and currently includes nineteen books. Workers of the Empire, Unite: Radical and Popular Challenges to British Imperialism, 1910s-1960s, by Yann Béliard and Professor Neville Kirk, is due out on 1 March 2024. An important contribution to … Continue reading Labour history books in paperback
The 2024 Ian MacDougall Memorial Lecture takes place at the National Library of Scotland, George IV Bridge, Edinburgh – Thursday 4 April 2024, 5 pm. It will be delivered by Caroline Milligan. Based on a series of oral history interviews made by the late Ian MacDougal with mill workers between 1996 and 2004, Border Mills: Lives of Peeblesshire Textile Workers is a new book that … Continue reading Border Mills: Lives of Peeblesshire Textile Workers
Since the 2007-8 financial crisis and its aftershocks, international capitalism has once again been in crisis. The crisis has been particularly marked in the UK and its outcome is currently unclear. A Nation in Crisis: Division, Conflict and Capitalism in the United Kingdom is a new book by Neville Kirk that examines the systemic crisis facing the nations of the UK. The book is set … Continue reading A Nation in Crisis: Division, Conflict and Capitalism in the United Kingdom
Society for the Study of Labour History 