Review of Empire of Guns: The Violent Making of the Industrial Revolution by Priya Satia

Review of Empire of Guns: The Violent Making of the Industrial Revolution by Priya Satia

Book review: Ted Grant: the permanent revolutionary

"Ted Grant: The Permanent Revolutionary." Alan Woods. Wellred Publishing. April 2013. --- This work aims to cover the life and ideas of Ted Grant, one of the most well known figures in the international Marxist movement. Author Alan Woods aims to outlines Grant’s important theoretical contribution to Marxism and provide insights into a subject that remains a closed book to most political analysts even now. Gordon Bannerman feels that the book fails to fully engage with its subject, but Woods’ account does have some value in its often gritty portrayal of extra-parliamentary political movements

“Privateering: Patriots and Profits in the War of 1812 (Book Review)” by Faye M. Kert

Review of Privateering: Patriots and Profits in the War of 1812 by Faye M. Ker

Book review: Harold Wilson: the unprincipled Prime Minister? Reappraising Harold Wilson edited by Andrew S. Crines and Kevin Hickson

2016 marks the centenary of Harold Wilson’s birth, the fiftieth anniversary of his most emphatic election victory and forty years since his resignation as British Prime Minister. In this new volume, Harold Wilson: The Unprincipled Prime Minister? Reappraising Harold Wilson, editors Andrew S. Crines and Kevin Hickson bring together contributors to reflect on Wilson’s legacy within twentieth-century politics. This book offers a robust counter-narrative to existing appraisals of Wilson’s governments and his influence on British politics, writes Gordon Bannerman

Book review: workers unite! The International Working Men’s Association 150 years later, edited by Marcello Musto

To mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of the International Working Men’s Association, this book pulls together essays and resources useful to readers interested in the foundations of labour movement history as well as in the critique of capitalism. Gordon Bannerman praises Marcello Musto’s chapter for reviving the IWMA from relative obscurity

Book Review: Britain votes 2015 edited by Andrew Geddes and Jonathan Tonge

In the edited collection Britain Votes 2015, editors Andrew Geddes and Jonathan Tonge present essays analysing the main issues and outcomes of the 2015 UK General Election. Offering a concise and well-rounded account of an election often promoted in the media as one of the most unpredictable of recent times, this book is recommended reading for students of contemporary British politics, writes Gordon Bannerma

Is Liam Fox’s ‘free-trading nation’ of the past a model for post-Brexit Britain?

Liam Fox, keen to negotiate trade deals outside the EU, has harked back to a golden age in which Britain was a ‘free trading nation’. But just how open was 19th-century Britain? Gordon Bannerman argues that the protectionist tradition was at least as strong as the impulse for free trade. Now, Britain no longer has an empire and it is difficult to compare the Victorian manufacturing-led economy with today’s services-led sector, where tariffs will be a major obstacle to trade with emerging economies. And although Tory protectionist instincts have faded, Fox faces a new challenge to free trade in the form of President Donald Trump

The impact of war: new business networks and small-scale contractors in Britain, 1739–1770

This paper argues that the resources and skills of military contractors were a crucial component of the war-making capacity of the British state in the mid-eighteenth-century. Contractors used product knowledge, access to capital and credit, market intelligence, and personal and professional connections to effectively perform contracts, and by doing so contributed towards operational capability and combat readiness. Contracting not only reveals the diversity of the domestic economy but also the degree of connectivity between different sectors. Problems of scale, cost, and risk were overcome by harnessing and channelling broad expertise across different sectors. If modern states were highly innovative in fiscal-military terms, contractors were no less so in managing extensive supply operation