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A History of the British Labour Party (British Studies) (British Studies)
by Andrew Thorpe
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (2001-03-23)
ISBN: 0333929071
EAN: 9780333929070
Dewy Decimal #: 324.24107
Hardcover: 343 pages
Edition: 2Rev Ed
SKU: B934-1468
Condition: As New
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Customer Reviews
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Reasonable enough, rather dry
Rating  (4)
Date: 2008-08-06
As a dry academic study of the history of the Labour Party this is perfectly ok. It does IMO read a little bit like a collection of facts and statistics strung together.
Fine for reference and fact finding. Not a particularly exciting or enlivening read.
I would reccomend anyone interested in this topic to also read 'To build a New Jerusalem' by A.J Davies. Far more colourful.
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Probably the best available short survey
Rating (4)
Date: 2004-02-09
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
This is a good, up-to-date survey written by a leading scholar on the subject. As a relatively short book, however, it is designed as an argument as much as a narrative. And the argument seems to be that Labour falls into trouble whenever "moderates" - those who believe in making a liberal capitalist economy work, so that the fruits of progress can be shared among all levels of the population - are confronted with "economic crises" that bring unemployment and/or recession. The author seems rather disappointed that Labour has never made, and probably never will make, a serious attempt at introducing a full-blooded socialist system. Hmm. The 1964-70 Wilson governments were pretty disastrous, as the author concedes, but how much worse would they have been if there had been a push for "socialism"? His conclusion - surely right - is that the Labour governments with the best record are those of Attlee from 1945 to 1951. Yet Attlee and his colleagues were themselves, to a large degree, "managers of capitalism". So the book's overall argument is a bit inconsistent. Even so, a recommended read.
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