Classical Idealism and Political Action in the First World War: Jane Malloch and Henry Brailsford

A great deal of published historical work has been devoted to establishing the causes and chronology of the demise of the Liberal party in British politics. The downfall of the Liberals has been ascribed to the inevitable outflanking development of the Labour party; to the mutilation of Liberal principles involved in waging the first ‘total’ war; to the personal rifts and feuds between the rival followers of Asquith and Lloyd George—and to various combinations of these factors. Yet there has been no detailed analysis of the division within the Parliamentary Liberal party during the First World War. Although at the end of 1916 obviously certain Liberals supported Asquith and others Lloyd George, no attempt has been made to examine the way in which the rifts in the party were reflected in political action in the House of Commons during the time of the second coalition government, nor to determine accurately the lines of division in the party. An answer to the question of ‘How did the Liberal party divide during the First World War?’ has proved elusive, although some historians of the period have been more successful than others.

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Radicalism in the Margins: The Politics of Reading Wilfrid Scawen Blunt in 1920

Journal of British Studies ◽

10.1017/jbr.2016.53 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 55 (3) ◽

pp. 501-518 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Edmund G. C. King

Keyword(s):

Political Action ◽

Church Of England ◽

Labour Party ◽

First World War ◽

World War ◽

Permanent Record ◽

The First World War ◽

Writing Practice ◽

First World ◽

Insight Into

AbstractThis article examines marginalia as a form of radical writing practice in the period immediately after the First World War. It focuses specifically on a densely annotated copy of the second part of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt's My Diaries, which covers on 1900–1914 and was published in 1920. The annotator, John Arthur Fallows (1864–1935), was a former Church of England clergyman and Independent Labour Party politician, and the article asks what motivated him to leave such an explicit record of his engagement with the book in its margins. Blunt recast his original diary entries to show how the outbreak of the First World War had arisen from the prewar imperialist policies of the Entente. Fallows, meanwhile, used his copy of My Diaries to inscribe a permanent record of his responses to Blunt's writing, which were shaped by his own memories of prewar radical-left political action. The dual record of textual engagement that can be recovered from this copy of My Diaries provides insight into how two British radicals “read” the causes of the First World War in the period between the Armistice and the conclusion of the Paris Peace Accords.

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Stereotypes Surrounding the Hungarian Peasantry During the Years of the First World War

Ethnographica et Folkloristica Carpathica ◽

10.47516/ethnographica/1/22/8185 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 1 (22) ◽

pp. 51-70

Author(s):

Tamás Csíki

Keyword(s):

Political Action ◽

Social Situation ◽

First World War ◽

World War ◽

Future Expectations ◽

Social Stereotypes ◽

The Social ◽

The First World War ◽

The Press ◽

First World

The paper examines the use and political, ideological, and social meanings of the term peasant and its synonyms. It reflects on how these meanings were modified as a consequence of the structural and experiential changes in the social situation of the agrarian population. The textual analysis is based on publications from the press during the First World War and, thus, the concepts, in their contexts, can be understood first as instruments for propaganda and mental mobilization, that is to say, as political action. Second, these notions and concepts also incorporated past (historical) phenomena and future expectations, through which they offered arguments for programs and ideas to transform society. Third, the texts frequently prompted debates in the media, which strengthened the discursive nature of the press, the controlled publicity, and the usage of vocabulary and language. By the same token, they can also represent a chance to examine the social stereotypes and the experience of personal relations crystallized in these texts.

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Congress in Decline: Bengal, 1930 to 1939

Modern Asian Studies ◽

10.1017/s0026749x00005321 ◽

1973 ◽

Vol 7 (3) ◽

pp. 589-645 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

John Gallagher

Keyword(s):

Rural Areas ◽

Political Action ◽

First World War ◽

The Other ◽

World War ◽

Indian Politics ◽

The First World War ◽

Provincial Councils ◽

First World ◽

Constitutional Changes

During the twenty years after the First World War, Indian politics were moulded by two main forces, each of which drew strength from the other. Important constitutional changes devolved a range of powers to Indians. But the British did not plan these reforms of 1919 and 1935 as stages by which they would quit India, bag and baggage, but rather as adjustments in the methods of keeping their Indian connection while retaining intact most of its fundamental advantages. At the centre of government in India, the powers of the Raj were increased; in the provinces more and more authority was entrusted to Indians. This system canalized much of Indian political action into the provinces. Moreover, by placing the new provincial administrations upon greatly widened electorates, it gave the Raj a further range of collaborators, selected now for their mastery of vote-gathering. The reforms of 1919 provoked another seminal development. By widening the functions of local government bodies in municipalities and the rural areas, which were to be chosen by the same voters who elected the new provincial councils, they linked the politics of the localities more closely to the politics of the province.

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Don Sturzo and the Ethical Value of Society

The Review of Politics ◽

10.1017/s0034670500006926 ◽

1965 ◽

Vol 27 (2) ◽

pp. 208-219

Author(s):

Gary L. Chamberlain

Keyword(s):

Social Action ◽

Political Action ◽

First World War ◽

World War ◽

Political Career ◽

The First World War ◽

The World ◽

Political Thinker ◽

First World

To Most of the world, Don Luigi Sturzo is known, if at all, as an astute political thinker and as founder of the Popolare Party in Italy following the First World War. Sturzo's own political career began in 1905, when he was elected mayor of the Sicilian town of Caltagirone, in spite of the fact that he himself was a priest. As he attests, he was brought to engage actively in politics, then as well as in 1918, when founding the Popolare, because he saw that social action, which his own town in Sicily needed badly, was impotent without the necessary political action to aid in carrying out reform.

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