Parties and People: England, 1914-1951

by Ross McKibbin

Overview

The 'sequel' to his best-selling Classes and Cultures, Ross McKibbin's latest book is a powerful reinterpretation of British politics in the first decades of universal suffrage. What did it mean to be a 'democratic society'? To what extent did voters make up their own minds on politics or allow elites to do it for them?

Exploring the political culture of these extraordinary years, Parties and People shows that class became one of the principal determinants of political behaviour, although its influence was often surprisingly weak. McKibbin argues that the kind of democracy that emerged in Britain was far from inevitable-as much historical accident as design-and was in many ways highly flawed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199584697
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/02/2010
Pages:	220
Sales rank:	734,533
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.60(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Ross McKibbin is Emeritus Research Fellow at St John's College, Oxford.

Table of Contents

1 Edwardian Equipoise and the First World War 33

2 Unstable Equilibrium, 1918-1929 33

3 The Crisis of Labour and the Conservative Hegemony, 1929-1939 69

4 The Party System Thrown Off Course 106

5 The English Road to Socialism 140

6 England: Social Change, Historical Accident, and Democracy 177

Index 203

Editorial Reviews

"It is impossible to do justice in a brief review to the sophistication and complexity of
McKibbin s analysis of the period, particularly his careful attention to the importance of political culture in determining electoral behavior...[A]nyone concerned with the history of twentieth-century Britain will want to read this book."—Journal of British Studies

From the Publisher