Labour and the Politics of Empire: Britain and Australia, 1900 to the Present

This is a pathbreaking comparative and trans-national study of the neglected influences of nation, empire and race upon the development and electoral fortunes of the Labour Party in Britain and the Australian Labor Party from their formative years of the 1900s to the elections of 2010. Based upon extensive primary and secondary-based research in Britain and Australia over several years, it makes a new and original contribution to the fields of labour, imperial and ‘British world’ history. It engages with traditional explanations of Labour politics based largely upon class and more recent ones upon gender, political institutions and political languages. It incorporates the factors of class and Labour into imperial and ‘British world’ history in new and significant ways. It offers the challenging conclusion that the forces of nation, empire and race exerted much greater influence upon Labour politics in both countries than suggested by ‘traditionalists’ and ‘revisionists’ alike. At the same time, however, it is alive to and explains political differences as well as similarities. The author is a leading British labour historian who has written extensively upon the national, comparative and trans-national labour histories of Britain, Australia and the USA and who has contributed to the theoretical development of the subject area. The book will appeal to undergraduates, postgraduates, scholars in history and politics and all those interested in and concerned with the past, present and future of Labour politics in Britain, Australia and more generally.