Popular Politics and Popular Culture in the Age of the Masses ― Studies in Lancashire and the North West of England, 1880s to 1930s

As the site of the world’s first industrial revolution, the North West of England, and Lancashire in particular, has been a continuing focus of interest for historians and social commentators who seek the big picture. Citing the period of 1880s to 1930s as “the age of the masses,” Hill examines a time when politics increasingly bowed to the interests of “the people,” and cultural life saw the rise of commercial mass culture alongside older voluntary and mutualist associations. There are 10 chapters divided into two parts. Part I covers the subject of politics and focuses on change, innovation and adaptation in a formative period of political transformation. Part II examines popular culture. Chapters are: Lancashire and the North West; the Lancashire miners; social democracy and the Labour movement; Manchester and Salford politics and the early development of the Independent Labour Party; Lib-Labism, socialism and Labour; politics, gender, and “New” Toryism; Cricket and the Imperial Connection; a hero in the text; rite of spring; Howard Jacobson’s The Mighty Walzer and Manchester. Annotation c2015 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)

Jeffrey Hill is Emeritus Professor of Historical and Cultural Studies at De Montfort University, Leicester, where from 2001 until 2007 he was Director of the International Centre for Sport, History and Culture. He has previously worked at Nottingham Trent University, and has been a visiting professor at both the University of British Columbia and Columbus State University, Georgia, USA. His research has concentrated chiefly on the politics and leisure activities of working-class society in Britain during the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries.