Britannia's Zealots, Volume I: Tradition, Empire and the Forging of the Conservative Right

Description

Britannia's Zealots, Volume I opens the first longitudinal study to examine the Conservative Right from the late-19th century to the present day. British Conservatism has always contained a significant section fundamentally opposed to progressive reform. A permanent minority in Parliament, dissident right-wing Conservatives nevertheless had allies in the press and sympathy among grassroots party members enabling them to create crises in the media and at party meetings. N.C. Fleming charts the evolution of reactionary politics from its preoccupation with the Protestant constitution to its fixation with the prestige and strength of Britain's global empire. He examines the overlooked ways in which Conservative Right parliamentarians shaped their party's policies and propaganda, in and out of office, and their relationships with the press and ordinary activists. He seeks to demonstrate that this influence could be circumscribing, and on occasion highly disruptive, with consequences which remain relevant for today's Conservative party. Britannia's Zealots, Volume I will be of great interest to academics and students of British history, right-wing politics, imperialism, and 20th-century history.

N.C. Fleming is Principal Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Worcester, Associate Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London and Honorary Research Fellow at Cardiff University, UK. He has been a Visiting Fellow at St Catherine's College and Senior Associate Member at St Antony's College, University of Oxford, UK.

Dr N.C. Fleming has accomplished two main things ... First, he establishes, with care and precision, the continuities and contrasts between the different phases of 'Right-Conservatism' that existed between 1900 and 1939. Second, he supplies what has been lacking in our knowledge of interwar Conservatism ... Within the confines of 320 pages (nearly a third of them endnotes) a great deal of ground is covered very thoroughly indeed. Dr Fleming clearly has a formidable grasp of his subject matter, and a second volume (whatever precisely that may consist of) of this project deserves to be anticipated eagerly by any student of 20th-century British Conservatism. * Parliamentary History * This is a rich and revealing piece of work, underpinned by exhaustive research in a very wide range of archives, and a firm command of the extensive secondary literature. In less skilled hands, the plethora of transient right-wing groups and long-forgotten knights of the shire might have proved bewildering and exhausting. But Fleming's chronological and thematic framework clearly signposts the broader issues at stake and nicely teases out a series of patterns, discontinuities, mutations and contradictions. His conclusions are persuasive and often entertainingly barbed. * Cercles Book Review * This significant and stimulating book is the first examination of the right wing of the Conservative Party over a long period. Dr Fleming's lucid and original discussion reveals the continuities and contradictions within the Conservative Right, and illuminates when it was influential - and when it was ineffective. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the political development of modern Britain. * Stuart Ball, Emeritus Professor of Modern British History, University of Leicester, UK * The radical right's anti-socialism and its angst at the decline of Britain's global influence are but two of the themes discussed in this interesting new work. It is an incisive, archivally driven study which ably illuminates some crucial long term trends. Recommended reading for scholars and students alike. * Richard Carr, Senior Lecturer in History and Politics, Anglia Ruskin University, UK * A compelling account of the continuities, party roots, and influence of the Conservative Right between 1900 and 1940. N.C. Fleming persuasively documents how and with what effect "diehard" Tories prodded the Conservative Party leadership to arrest liberalism and socialism at home and imperial decline abroad. * Victor Bailey, Distinguished Professor of Modern British History, University of Kansas, USA * Britannia's Zealots is an important book that looks at the unique, and uniquely important, role played by the right wing of the Tory party in the 19th and 20th centuries. Fleming's book, based on extensive research, is a significant contribution not merely to the history of British Conservatism but to our understanding of British politics more broadly. * James Cronin, Professor of British and European History, Boston College, USA *