Wales and socialism : political culture and national identity before the Great War / by Martin Wright.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wright, Martin (Lecturer), author.

Series:

Studies in Welsh history ; 35.

Studies in Welsh history ; 35

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Socialism--Wales--History.

Socialism.

History.

Wales.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xi, 275 pages ; 22 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cardiff : University of Wales Press, 2016.

Summary:

This is the thirty-fifth volume in the Studies in Welsh History series. For further titles in the series, see www.uwp.co.uk, This study examines the spread of socialism in late-Victorian and Edwardian Wales, paying particular attention to the relationship between socialism and Welsh national identity. Welsh opponents of socialism often claimed it to be a foreign import, whereas socialists often asserted that the Welsh were socialist by nature. This study - the first full-scale study of the influence of early socialism across all of Wales - demonstrates that the reality was more complex than either assertion admits. Rather than focusing on the structural growth of socialism, the book provides an account of the spread of ideas and the development of a political culture. The study culminates in a discussion of attempts, in the period before the Great War, to create a specifically Welsh socialist tradition. In approaching the topic from this angle, this study restores a part of the lost diversity of British socialism that is of striking contemporary relevance. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Pioneers, 1790s-1880s 5

2 Putting down roots, 1889-1899 34

i Cardiff and Fabianism 35

ii The Social Democratic Federation in south Wales 58

3 South Wales and the ILP ascendancy, 1891-1906 82

i The ILP and socialism in south Wales before 1898 83

ii The 1898 coal strike 105

iii The culture of socialism in south Wales 122

4 Beyond the heads of the valleys, c.l880s-1906 143

i British socialism and Welsh Wales 144

ii Socialists, quarrymen and Lord Penrhyn 161

iii Towards an indigenous Welsh socialism? 174

iv Robert Jones Derfel, 'Socialist Cymreig' 184

5 Progress and pluralism, 1906-1912 202

i The socialist movement in Wales after 1906 203

ii The struggle for a Welsh socialist consciousness 222.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 242-264) and index.

ISBN:

9781783169160

1783169168

OCLC:

952155742