The Renewal of Radicalism: Politics, Identity and Ideology in England, 1867-1924

The renewal of radicalism maps the trajectory of Labour politics from its origins in the mid-Victorian tradition of working-class radicalism through to its emergence as a major electoral force in the 1920s. Focusing on largely neglected areas in southern England, the book offers a new narrative of continuity that challenges conventional understandings of English political history. By applying the conceptual analysis of ideologies to the world of local politics, the book identifies, for the first time, the conceptual building blocks of radical and labourist ideologies. It also offers fresh perspectives on the Labour party’s contribution to the ‘nationalisation’ of political culture, the survival of restrictive assumptions about gender, place, work and race in the face of socio-economic change, and the process through which identities and ideologies were forged at a local level.