Labour People: Leaders and Lieutenants, Hardie to Kinnock

by KennethO.Morgan (Author), KennethO.Morgan (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  1987

  $5.21

  The British labour movement has always venerated the collective ideal: solidarity, mass endeavour, the common good. Yet, it also draws constant inspiration from the ideas and achievements of single individuals. From Hardie to Bevan, from Benn to Kinnock and Scargill, Labour's progress or decline has always been inextricably bound with its major personalities and the concept of leadership. Labour People opens up a gallery of vivid portraits, covering nine decade of Labour's stormy history. Drawing on extensive original material, and in some cases, personal acquaintance, it presents the parliamentary leaders, trade union officials, intellectuals, machine apparatchiks, prophets, planners, and pioneers of four main chronological periods. Noted labour historian Kenneth Morgan begins his survey of Labour's greats with the founding fathers who shaped the turn-of-the-century labour policies, and moves on to the young economic planners of the 1940s and the post World War II revisionists, ending with current profiles of Britain's formidable mining leaders. Setting these portraits in a historical and comparative framework, this book provides a panoramic vista of the history, ideas, strengths, and limitations of the British Labour movement in the 20th century.

• Used

  Paperback
  1992

  $3.38

  The British Labour movement has always venerated the collective ideal: solidarity, mass endeavour, the common good. Yet paradoxically, it draws constant inspiration from the ideas and achievements of key individuals; it needs and reveres the charismatic figures of both past and present. From Hardie to Bevan to Kinnock, Benn and Scargill, Labour's progress or decline has always been bound up with its major personalities and the concept of leadership. In this book, Morgan provides a reassessment of these leaders and lieutenants throughout the nine decades of Labour's stormy history. In a gallery of vivid portraits, each based on original material and some also on personal acquaintance, he presents the parliamentary leaders, trade union officials, intellectuals, machine apparatchiks, prophets, planners and pioneers of four main chronological periods. Labour People aims to provide a new framework for understanding the history, ideas, strengths and limitations of the British Labour movement in the 20th century.