New Historical Express

(Formerly Hatful of History)

Category: Young Communist League

New article published in TCBH on CPGB and gay rights

This is just a quick post to let everyone know that Daryl Leeworthy and I have just had an article published in Twentieth Century British History journal on the Communist Party of Great Britain and gay rights. The title of the article is ‘Before Pride: The Struggle for the Recognition of Gay Rights in the…
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September 19, 2016
The role of the Communist Party in the British anti-racist movement

Below is something that I wrote as an overview of the book that I have been writing over the last year and with the manuscript finally submitted to the publisher a few weeks ago (and deadlines for other projects looming), I thought I’d post this. I have recently completed a book manuscript on the…
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July 28, 2015
Policing Communism Across the British Empire: A Transnational Study

This is a revised (yet shortened) version of the conference paper I gave last week at the XXIV Biennial Conference of the Australasian Association for European History. I am currently knocking it into shape for submission as a journal article, so any feedback, comments or questions is most welcome. If you’re interested in reading the…
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July 23, 2015
The Communist Party and the 1981 riots

Over the weekend of April 10-12 1981 (34 years ago this last weekend), black and white youth rioted on the streets of Brixton and these riots, along with the riots that spread across the country’s inner cities in July of the same year, became a symbol of the unrest caused by Thatcherism, as well as…
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April 13, 2015
‘Homosexuality and punk rock’: Conflicting social attitudes in the 1970s Young Communist League

Several authors, such as Mike Waite and Geoff Andrews, have argued that the Young Communist League was an important incubator for ideas of reform within the Communist Party of Great Britain in the 1970s, with YCL members of the late 1960s and early 1970s being fundamental to the Gramscian/Eurocommunist ideas proposed ion the mid-1970s, predominantly…
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December 3, 2014
New book project: British Communism and the Politics of Race

I am very happy to announce that I have recently signed a contract with Brill’s Historical Materialism book series for a forthcoming book, tentatively titled The Communist Party of Great Britain and the Politics of Race, deliverable early next year. Here is a little about the proposed book: This book examines how the Communist Party…
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September 9, 2014
Far Left book has arrived!

I am back at work after two weeks with dreadful sickness and was happy to have received a package from MUP. The book can be pre-ordered from Manchester University Press now. I know that 75 quid is a tad on the pricey side, but if enough institutional libraries (and the like) buy copies now, a…
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September 1, 2014
Writing the History of the British Far Left: Book launch talk on Youtube

Last month, Matthew Worley and I pre-emptively launched our forthcoming edited collection, Against the Grain: The British Far Left from 1956 (Manchester University Press, 2014), at the London Socialist Historians Group seminar series, located within London’s Institute of Historical Research. The launch was well attended, but was a bit more formal than I had anticipated.…
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July 31, 2014
Against the Grain: The British far left from 1956 – chapter list announcement

The proofs have been handed back to Manchester University Press. The index has been compiled. All we need to do now is wait until the book is published. And with that, I’d thought I would finally publish the list of chapters and authors contributing to the collection. We are very happy with the wide range…
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April 29, 2014
New stuff for those interested in communist history

For those interested in communist history, I just thought I’d flag two new publications. Firstly, there is a new issue (#6) of Twentieth Century Communism journal has just been published by Lawrence & Wishart. Now published twice a year, this journal has some of cutting-edge historical research on communism (particularly communism in the Western world).…
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March 13, 2014