We are excited to announce that you can now pre-order our forthcoming volume Waiting for the Revolution: The British Far Left from 1956 from Manchester University Press. According to the MUP website, it should be available physically in December.
Furthermore, as part of MUP’s election sale, you can buy the first volume Against the Grain for only £9.00!
Celebrate the resurgence of the British left with these books. Forward to victory!
The latest issue of Socialist History Journal is out now, co-edited by myself and Matthew Worley. The issue is dedicated to British left intellectuals after 1956. It is an extension of our forthcoming collection with Manchester University Press, Waiting for the Revolution: The British Far Left from 1956. You can find read our editorial for free here and read Ian Gwinn’s essay of History Workshop for free here.
This is just a quick post to let you all know that Labour History Review have published an article by myself and Nicholas Barnett titled ‘”Peace with a Captial P: The Spectre of Communism and Competing Notions of “Peace” in Britain, 1949-1960’. It is available for free via open access here.
Here is the abstract:
This article is concerned with different factions within the British peace movement during the 1950s and early 1960s, each of which gave the word ‘peace’ a different meaning. We argue that the movement was made up of several, often contradictory sections, and despite attempts by groups like the Peace Pledge Union to distance themselves from the communist controlled British Peace Committee, popular perceptions were tainted by association with communism until the mid-1950s. Following the onset of the H-bomb era, this taint lessened as people began to fear the destructiveness of hydrogen weapons. When the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament formed in 1958 it became the predominant British organization opposed to nuclear weapons and achieved popularity because it limited its objective to nuclear disarmament whereas the Peace Pledge Union demanded the condemnation of all war.
We are running a competition to win a copy of the recently published paperback version of Against the Grain: The British Far Left from 1956. Click on the link here to go to the Hatful of History Facebook page. To enter, all you need to do is ‘like’ the page and tag someone in on the post.
The competition will end on the morning of March 8 (Australia time). A name will be randomly chosen and contacted via FB Messenger soon after.
So what are you waiting for?!
And remember, you can always order the book from Manchester University Press here.
Terrorism and Political Violence have just published my article, ‘Creating the National/Border Security Nexus: Counter-Terrorist Operations and Monitoring Middle Eastern and North African to the UK in the 1970s-1980s’. It is based on research funded by the Australian Academy of the Humanities’ David Phillips Travelling Fellowship. The abstract is below:
This article looks at an earlier episode in the history of the UK border security apparatus by examining how the immigration control system was used in the 1970s and 1980s to detect potential terrorists from the Middle East and North Africa. Using recently opened archival records, it shows that the UK government introduced a strict system of visa checks, interviews, and other measures to nearly all Middle Eastern and North African visitors to the UK to prevent the entry of suspected terrorist personnel. By using these highly arbitrary measures, it became the modus operandi of the UK authorities to treat all Middle Eastern and North Africans as potential terrorists until convinced otherwise.
You can find the full article here. If you would like a PDF, do let me know.
This is just a quick plug to let you all know that Palgrave Macmillan are having a “£30 off” sale until December 31, 2016 and while they do publish a ton of great books, you should really use it to buy our book, Race, Gender and the Body in British Immigration Control. You can buy it from the Palgrave website here. Remember to use the code PHLDY16EP.
If you don’t know what the book is about, here’s the blurb:
This book analyses the practice of virginity testing endured by South Asian women who wished to enter Britain between the late 1960s and the early 1980s, and places this practice into a wider historical context. Using recently opened government documents the extent to which these women were interrogated and scrutinized at the border is uncovered.
And here’s some nice words that people have said about it:
“An important and revelatory study of a shameful episode in 20th century British immigration history that was shaped by Imperial racism.” – Alan Travis, Home Affairs Editor, The Guardian
“It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of Smith and Marmo’s study. Their chilling documentation of abuses permitted and vigorously denied by the Home Office represents feminist scholarship at its best.” – Philippa Levine, Mary Helen Thompson Centennial Professor in the Humanities, University of Texas at Austin, US
“This historical study examines the intertwining of ‘race’, gender and the body in the application of immigration controls in Britain since the 1970s. Drawing on research in British Government archives, ‘Race, Gender and the Body in British Immigration Control’ begins with the shocking case of virginity testing of a 35 year old woman, who arrived at Heathrow Airport, London in 1979 to marry her fiancé. Smith and Marmo unpick these obscene practices as symptomatic of the de-humanising treatment of migrants from the former colonies and the dense racialized, sexual politics of British border controls. Crucially, Smith and Marmo also explore the incredible resistance of South Asian women and anti-deportation activists against the discriminatory practices of the British state. This important new history of immigration control speaks directly to the contemporary situation of border securitisation in Britain and beyond. It will be of interest to, and will be widely read by all interested in migration, citizenship, human rights, post-colonial migration, and histories of resistance to unjust border controls.” – Dr Imogen Tyler, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Lancaster University, UK
This is a quick announcement that the paperback version of Against the Grain: The British Far Left from 1956 (edited by myself and Matthew Worley) is now available. If you haven’t ordered a copy yet, you really should do so. If you are in the UK, I would recommend buying via here (or asking Bookmarks, Housmans or News From Nowhere for it). Or if you are in Australia, please buy from here. And wherever you are in the world, do support your local independent book stores and ask whether they can order it in for you.
I am pleased to announce that the second volume, Waiting for the Revolution: The British Far left from 1956 vol. II, will be published by Manchester University Press, probably late in 2017.
