No foreign conflict has had a greater impact on modern British politics than the Spanish Civil War (1936–9). More than other conflicts of the 1930s in Abyssinia and China, or more recent wars in Vietnam and Bosnia, the Spanish Civil War served to galvanise political activity in Britain, in support both of the Republican government and of Franco's Nationalist rebels. Familiar aspects, such as the role of the British government, the intellectuals, and the International Brigades are reinterpreted alongside the first detailed accounts of previously neglected subjects such as right-wing and religious opinion. In addition, Buchanan shows how the Civil War acted not only as a symbol of anti-fascism for the Left, but also as a positive example of a 'New Spain' arising from the ashes of the old. Many archival sources are used to offer a stimulating interpretation of a subject of great significance to twentieth-century Britain.
East Wind offers the first complete, archive-based account of the relationship between China and the British Left, from the rise of modern Chinese nationalism to the death of Mao Tse tung. Beginning w
In this definitive new account of the emergence of human rights activism in post-war Britain, Tom Buchanan shows how disparate individuals, organisations and causes gradually came to acquire a common identity as 'human rights activists'. This was a slow process whereby a coalition of activists, working on causes ranging from anti-fascism, anti-apartheid and decolonisation to civil liberties and the peace movement, began to come together under the banner of human rights. The launch of Amnesty International in 1961, and its landmark winning of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977 provided a model and inspiration to many new activist movements in 'the field of human rights', and helped to affect major changes towards public and political attitudes towards human rights issues across the globe.
No foreign conflict has had a greater impact on modern British politics than the Spanish Civil War (1936-9). It served to galvanize political activity in Britain, both in support of the Republican gov
In this definitive new account of the emergence of human rights activism in post-war Britain, Tom Buchanan shows how disparate individuals, organisations and causes gradually came to acquire a common identity as 'human rights activists'. This was a slow process whereby a coalition of activists, working on causes ranging from anti-fascism, anti-apartheid and decolonisation to civil liberties and the peace movement, began to come together under the banner of human rights. The launch of Amnesty International in 1961, and its landmark winning of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977 provided a model and inspiration to many new activist movements in 'the field of human rights', and helped to affect major changes towards public and political attitudes towards human rights issues across the globe.
This book draws on a mass of documentary material to provide a major reinterpretation of British labour's response to the Spanish Civil War. It challenges the view that the labour leadership ' betrayed' the Spanish Republic, and that this polarised the movement along `left' versus 'right' lines. Instead, it argues that the overriding concern of the major leaders was to defend labour's institutional interests against the political destabilisation caused by the conflict, rather than to defend Spanish democracy. Although the main advocates of this position were trade union leaders associated with the labour right such as Walter Citrine and Ernest Bevin, the book argues that their dominance reflected the centrality of the trade unions to labour movement decision-making rather than the abuse of union power to achieve political goals.
The history of the Balkans incorporates all the major historical themes of the 20th Century—the rise of nationalism, communism and fascism, state-sponsored genocide and urban warfare. Focusing on the
Foster + Partners Portfolio: 1967-2017 is a complete and extraordinary account of the first fifty years of Foster + Partners - a globally renowned studio for sustainable architecture, urbanism and des
The experiences of the first years of new teachers’ professional lives are critical to their decisions about embracing or leaving the teaching profession. Writ large, these experiences have the potent
