Robert Crowcroft
Biographic Data
| ID | 1210860 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Robert Crowcroft |
| GIVEN NAMES | Robert |
| FAMILY NAME | Crowcroft |
| SIGNATURE | CROWCROFT R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Edinburgh |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 8 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 18 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 6 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2018 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Popular Politics
Though part of what might be termed historians’ ‘mental furniture’, popular politics is an elastic term that evades close definition. This chapter suggests some defining principles and characteristics of popular political activity. It then takes a broadly chronological form and identifies in the first half of the nineteenth century a diminishing resort to violence and the growing importance of memory and commemoration (notably in Scotland and Wal…
Religion and the Churches
This chapter explores the role of religion and the churches in British political life since 1800. It argues that during this period the British state gradually attempted to remove religious dispute from public life, and yet frequently failed to do so. The chapter examines a series of political problems posed by questions of religion and the churches, including nineteenth-century Ireland, the proliferation of diverse varieties of Christianity thro…
Prime Minister and Cabinet
While British political history is frequently preoccupied with the role and actions of prime ministers and Cabinets, the formal study of those institutions remains underdeveloped. In part this is because those roles have often been imprecisely defined, and understood largely in terms of the personnel who discharged them. The value of biography, or collective biography, in analysing these subjects is therefore considered in this chapter, alongside…
Ideology in Action
This chapter explores what its author sees as three of the most important, and closely related, recent historiographical themes relating to the articulation but also the impact of British political ideas since 1800: political realities, modernity, and moralities. The chapter analyses the close connections and interplay between these three initially seemingly uncomfortable bedfellows, and argues that collectively they have produced a contemporary …
Imperial Policy
This chapter examines British external policy against the background of the expansion of the British empire up to the end of the First World War and its long and uneven demise thereafter. In exploring the political dimensions of this process of expansion and contraction the chapter aims to explore the complexities of the scholarships and chronologies involved. It evaluates how historians have approached key challenges and critical turning points,…
The Oxford Handbook of Modern British Political History, 1800-2000
A new title in the Oxford Handbooks in History series, offering an authoritative view of British political history from 1800 to 2000, engaging with the sweeping changes in the ways in which Britain was governed, the duties of the state, and its role in the wider world, and suggesting avenues of future research.
Carl Schmitt
Carl Schmitt (1888–1985) was one of the most interesting German thinkers of the twentieth century. Best known for his works The Concept of the Political, Political Theology, and Dictatorship, Schmi
Veteran MPs and Conservative Politics in the Aftermath of the Great War
Peering into the future
This article examines how some key Conservative leaders conceptualized the problem of ‘the future’ in the final stages of the Second World War. It contends that the mental map employed by senior Conservatives for navigating the challenges of post-war national renewal has remained significantly misunderstood. The article conducts a close reading of Conservative positions on a range of issues – from economic modernization and constitutional proprie…
Making a Reality of Collective Responsibility’
There has recently been renewed interest in the history of the British state and party politics during the Second World War. This article contributes to that, representing the first detailed analysis of a body that became a crucial part of the Whitehall war machine, the Lord President's Committee. Established in 1940, and comprising several senior politicians, this committee had the responsibility for many aspects of domestic mobilisation. Sir Jo…
Financial policy, coalition and Sir Kingsley Wood, 1940-1
There has recently been renewed interest in British politics during the Second World War. Meanwhile the financial strategy pursued by the Churchill government—widely considered an important step towards ‘Keynesian’ measures—has long received extensive attention from scholars. This article makes a fresh contribution to the literature, exploring the process through which the political legitimacy of that strategy was established and communicated in …
Making Thatcher's Britain
BEN JACKSON & ROBERT SAUNDERS, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2012, xiii +352 pp., ISBN 9781107683372 (pbk) (£19.99) As the age of Margaret Thatcher recedes into the past, it is becoming ea
Mind the Gap’
The 2
Globalisation and Public Language
This article questions what the concept of ‘globalisation’ really amounts to. In doing so it highlights problems for the ascendancy of globalisation in contemporary public debate. Globalisation has become a catch‐all; the phrase is now used to try and explain all manner of phenomena from everyday life to international politics. But the article suggests that this may be little more than a combination of rhetoric and wishful thinking. It asserts th…
A War on ‘Risk’? British Government and the National Security Strategy
This article explores the United Kingdom's National Security Strategy (NSS) since 2008, considering what the NSS discloses about how contemporary Whitehall conceptualises ‘risks’ to Britain. It contends that rather than being a strategy in the Clausewitzian sense, the NSS represents a political exercise in risk management. In addressing a range of quite different problems, the NSS suggests that those in Whitehall now conceive their role as being …
The Political Life of Josiah C. Wedgwood
Attlee's Great Contemporaries
Frank Field (Ed) London, Continuum, 2009 240 pp., ISBN 9780826432247 (£18.99) This volume is a collection of essays written by Clement Attlee following his retirement from public life, and handily
Britain's War Machine
The long-standing controversialist David Edgerton has excelled himself with this highly revisionist account of Britain's national performance during the Second World War. The book is targeted at a general audience, but that does not minimize or in any way weaken the case that he makes. It is an unusually provocative book. One might think that there is little left to be said about the British state during this period, but in fact precisely the opp…
From Burke to Burkha
In the Shadow of the Dictators – By Paul Corthorn
A Dictionary of British History
The book is packed with interest to the final page' The IndependentWho was the first King of England? What prompted the Cat and Mouse Act? When was Wembley stadium demolished? Where did the Rebecca riots take place? How long did the Hundred Years War last?Containing more than 3,800 authoritative entries written by over 100 specialist contributors, this dictionary describes the people and events that have shaped and defined domestic, political, so…
Maurice Cowling and the Writing of British Political History
The reissue of the most famous works of the controversial historian Maurice Cowling, who died in August 2005, presents an opportunity to reassess both Cowling and the now-marginalised historiograph
What is Happening in Europe?’ Richard Stokes, Fascism, and the Anti‐War Movement in the British Labour Party during the Second World War and After
This article analyses the political career of the Labour Party MP Richard Rapier Stokes, one of the leading anti‐war agitators in Britain during the Second World War. Stokes was a highly unconventional politician: not only was he more fearful of the threat posed by the Soviet Union than Nazi Germany but he was actually a fascist fellow‐traveller and a member of numerous fascist groups. Campaigning to halt the struggle between Britain and Germany …
The 'high politics' of Labour party factionalism, 1950-5
This article applies the methodology of the ‘high politics’ school to Labour history between 1950 and 1955, seeking to draw out the power-political, rather than the ideological, aspect of the internal conflict that occurred during this period – an aspect which has sometimes been overshadowed in existing accounts. It uses a combination of official party sources and, particularly, material such as diaries in order to examine afresh how politicians …
Mind the Gap’
The 2
From Burke to Burkha
Making a Reality of Collective Responsibility’
There has recently been renewed interest in the history of the British state and party politics during the Second World War. This article contributes to that, representing the first detailed analysis of a body that became a crucial part of the Whitehall war machine, the Lord President's Committee. Established in 1940, and comprising several senior politicians, this committee had the responsibility for many aspects of domestic mobilisation. Sir Jo…
A Dictionary of British History
The book is packed with interest to the final page' The IndependentWho was the first King of England? What prompted the Cat and Mouse Act? When was Wembley stadium demolished? Where did the Rebecca riots take place? How long did the Hundred Years War last?Containing more than 3,800 authoritative entries written by over 100 specialist contributors, this dictionary describes the people and events that have shaped and defined domestic, political, so…
Maurice Cowling and the Writing of British Political History
The reissue of the most famous works of the controversial historian Maurice Cowling, who died in August 2005, presents an opportunity to reassess both Cowling and the now-marginalised historiograph
The 'high politics' of Labour party factionalism, 1950-5
This article applies the methodology of the ‘high politics’ school to Labour history between 1950 and 1955, seeking to draw out the power-political, rather than the ideological, aspect of the internal conflict that occurred during this period – an aspect which has sometimes been overshadowed in existing accounts. It uses a combination of official party sources and, particularly, material such as diaries in order to examine afresh how politicians …
Maurice Cowling and the Writing of British Political History
The reissue of the most famous works of the controversial historian Maurice Cowling, who died in August 2005, presents an opportunity to reassess both Cowling and the now-marginalised historiograph
What is Happening in Europe?’ Richard Stokes, Fascism, and the Anti‐War Movement in the British Labour Party during the Second World War and After
This article analyses the political career of the Labour Party MP Richard Rapier Stokes, one of the leading anti‐war agitators in Britain during the Second World War. Stokes was a highly unconventional politician: not only was he more fearful of the threat posed by the Soviet Union than Nazi Germany but he was actually a fascist fellow‐traveller and a member of numerous fascist groups. Campaigning to halt the struggle between Britain and Germany …
A Dictionary of British History
The book is packed with interest to the final page' The IndependentWho was the first King of England? What prompted the Cat and Mouse Act? When was Wembley stadium demolished? Where did the Rebecca riots take place? How long did the Hundred Years War last?Containing more than 3,800 authoritative entries written by over 100 specialist contributors, this dictionary describes the people and events that have shaped and defined domestic, political, so…
In the Shadow of the Dictators – By Paul Corthorn
The Political Life of Josiah C. Wedgwood
Attlee's Great Contemporaries
Frank Field (Ed) London, Continuum, 2009 240 pp., ISBN 9780826432247 (£18.99) This volume is a collection of essays written by Clement Attlee following his retirement from public life, and handily
Britain's War Machine
The long-standing controversialist David Edgerton has excelled himself with this highly revisionist account of Britain's national performance during the Second World War. The book is targeted at a general audience, but that does not minimize or in any way weaken the case that he makes. It is an unusually provocative book. One might think that there is little left to be said about the British state during this period, but in fact precisely the opp…
From Burke to Burkha
Mind the Gap’
The 2
Globalisation and Public Language
This article questions what the concept of ‘globalisation’ really amounts to. In doing so it highlights problems for the ascendancy of globalisation in contemporary public debate. Globalisation has become a catch‐all; the phrase is now used to try and explain all manner of phenomena from everyday life to international politics. But the article suggests that this may be little more than a combination of rhetoric and wishful thinking. It asserts th…
A War on ‘Risk’? British Government and the National Security Strategy
This article explores the United Kingdom's National Security Strategy (NSS) since 2008, considering what the NSS discloses about how contemporary Whitehall conceptualises ‘risks’ to Britain. It contends that rather than being a strategy in the Clausewitzian sense, the NSS represents a political exercise in risk management. In addressing a range of quite different problems, the NSS suggests that those in Whitehall now conceive their role as being …
Making Thatcher's Britain
BEN JACKSON & ROBERT SAUNDERS, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2012, xiii +352 pp., ISBN 9781107683372 (pbk) (£19.99) As the age of Margaret Thatcher recedes into the past, it is becoming ea
Financial policy, coalition and Sir Kingsley Wood, 1940-1
There has recently been renewed interest in British politics during the Second World War. Meanwhile the financial strategy pursued by the Churchill government—widely considered an important step towards ‘Keynesian’ measures—has long received extensive attention from scholars. This article makes a fresh contribution to the literature, exploring the process through which the political legitimacy of that strategy was established and communicated in …
Making a Reality of Collective Responsibility’
There has recently been renewed interest in the history of the British state and party politics during the Second World War. This article contributes to that, representing the first detailed analysis of a body that became a crucial part of the Whitehall war machine, the Lord President's Committee. Established in 1940, and comprising several senior politicians, this committee had the responsibility for many aspects of domestic mobilisation. Sir Jo…
Carl Schmitt
Carl Schmitt (1888–1985) was one of the most interesting German thinkers of the twentieth century. Best known for his works The Concept of the Political, Political Theology, and Dictatorship, Schmi
Veteran MPs and Conservative Politics in the Aftermath of the Great War
Peering into the future
This article examines how some key Conservative leaders conceptualized the problem of ‘the future’ in the final stages of the Second World War. It contends that the mental map employed by senior Conservatives for navigating the challenges of post-war national renewal has remained significantly misunderstood. The article conducts a close reading of Conservative positions on a range of issues – from economic modernization and constitutional proprie…
Popular Politics
Though part of what might be termed historians’ ‘mental furniture’, popular politics is an elastic term that evades close definition. This chapter suggests some defining principles and characteristics of popular political activity. It then takes a broadly chronological form and identifies in the first half of the nineteenth century a diminishing resort to violence and the growing importance of memory and commemoration (notably in Scotland and Wal…
Religion and the Churches
This chapter explores the role of religion and the churches in British political life since 1800. It argues that during this period the British state gradually attempted to remove religious dispute from public life, and yet frequently failed to do so. The chapter examines a series of political problems posed by questions of religion and the churches, including nineteenth-century Ireland, the proliferation of diverse varieties of Christianity thro…
Prime Minister and Cabinet
While British political history is frequently preoccupied with the role and actions of prime ministers and Cabinets, the formal study of those institutions remains underdeveloped. In part this is because those roles have often been imprecisely defined, and understood largely in terms of the personnel who discharged them. The value of biography, or collective biography, in analysing these subjects is therefore considered in this chapter, alongside…
Ideology in Action
This chapter explores what its author sees as three of the most important, and closely related, recent historiographical themes relating to the articulation but also the impact of British political ideas since 1800: political realities, modernity, and moralities. The chapter analyses the close connections and interplay between these three initially seemingly uncomfortable bedfellows, and argues that collectively they have produced a contemporary …
Imperial Policy
This chapter examines British external policy against the background of the expansion of the British empire up to the end of the First World War and its long and uneven demise thereafter. In exploring the political dimensions of this process of expansion and contraction the chapter aims to explore the complexities of the scholarships and chronologies involved. It evaluates how historians have approached key challenges and critical turning points,…
The Oxford Handbook of Modern British Political History, 1800-2000
A new title in the Oxford Handbooks in History series, offering an authoritative view of British political history from 1800 to 2000, engaging with the sweeping changes in the ways in which Britain was governed, the duties of the state, and its role in the wider world, and suggesting avenues of future research.
Political science (23 works) · Politics (20 works) · Law (19 works) · Sociology (19 works) · History (13 works) · Law (13 works) · Political economy (13 works) · History (10 works) · Political and Economic history of UK and US (9 works) · Australian History and Society (7 works)