Peter Gurney
Biographic Data
| ID | 3597379 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Peter Gurney |
| GIVEN NAMES | Peter |
| FAMILY NAME | Gurney |
| SIGNATURE | GURNEY P |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Essex |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3938-8092 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 28 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
The Chartist Revolution
Building a Social Science: Nineteenth-Century British Cooperative Thought , by Kirsten Madden and Joseph Persky
Round Table: The Starmer Labour Government in Historical Perspective
The election of Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party on 5 July 2024 after fourteen years of Conservative (mis)rule may represent an important turning point in British political history. At any rate, this was how the new Prime Minister represented his party’s ‘landslide’ victory. Starmer made two short speeches that day, the first to supporters outside London’s Tate Modern art gallery, the second to the wider public outside 10 Downing Street. Similar i…
Rethinking the Language of Chartism
For decades, the study of Chartism has been one of the most vibrant fields of modern British history. Indeed, this nineteenth-century radical movement was a major empirical focus for proponents of the so-called linguistic turn that has exerted such a major influence on the discipline. Interest in the Chartists does not abate, with valuable recent studies all combining—to greater or lesser extent—close attention to Chartist verbal and symbolic for…
Round Table: The New Cold War
First paragraph: The ongoing conflict in Ukraine is having profound repercussions in Britain, not least on our cultural and intellectual life. However, although the media has presented this unfolding crisis in exhaustive detail, no one could reasonably argue that there has been much depth to the general treatment. From the outset, media coverage has been superficial and woefully lacking in objectivity, with briefings by President Zelensky and oth…
Contemporary Thought on Nineteenth Century Socialism: Socialism and Co-operation in Britain 1850–1918
This second volume considers various socialist impulses and developments after the collapse of the Owenite movement in Britain. Interventions by some leading Christian Socialists will illuminate one important tendency; publications by O’Brien another less vital strand. Central to this volume, however, will be far less well-known pamphlets, book extracts and articles in the periodical press by national and local co-operative writers and activists,…
Contemporary Thought on Nineteenth Century Socialism
Redefining ‘the woman with the basket’: The Women's Co‐operative Guild and the Politics of Consumption in Britain during the Second World War
Over recent decades, historians of gender have transformed our understanding of the impact of total war on British society. Feminist scholars in particular have been drawn to this field of research because, as Margaret and Patrice Higonnet suggested in an influential essay, war 'crystallizes contradictions between ideology and actual experience'. 1 Mass mobilisation necessitated by total war blurred boundaries between military and home fronts and…
Co-operation and Communism cannot work side by side’: Organized Consumers and the Early Cold War in Britain
This article contributes to a better understanding of labour anti-communism in Britain through an exploration of the evolution of ideas and attitudes within the co-operative movement during the early Cold War. It demonstrates that the period witnessed an increasingly rigid separation of co-operation from communism and argues that this separation made it harder for activists within the co-operative movement to imagine a total or utopian alternativ…
Social Opulence and Private Restraint: The Consumer in British Socialist Thought Since 1800
Social Opulence and Private Restraint: The Consumer in British Socialist Thought Since 1800." Cultural and Social History, 15(2), pp. 280–281
Voice of Civilisation: Advertising and its critics in austerity Britain
The advertising industry was on the defensive during World War Two, with advertising regarded by many British people as deeply unpatriotic, potentially undermining the national interest and the fight against fascism. This article analyses the debate on the role of advertising in Britain in the immediate aftermath of war, when the advertising industry regrouped to meet the challenge of working within an economic environment shaped by the imperativ…
The Curse of the Co-ops’: Co-operation, the Mass Press and the Market in Interwar Britain
Though it continues to be neglected by historians, the British Co-operative movement had 6.5 million members in the early 1930s. The movement’s phenomenal success inevitably brought it into conflict with both private capitalists and government, who sought to contain co-operators’ ambitions. The movement’s ideologues proclaimed that the great lesson of the Depression was that markets ought to be regulated by the democratic will of the people and t…
The Democratic Idiom: Languages of Democracy in the Chartist Movement
History and Commitment: E.P. Thompson's Legacy
Fifty years after the publication of his groundbreaking study, The Making of the English Working Class, E.P. Thompson's legacy remains controversial. While the dominant liberal historical establishment has assimilated certain aspects of his approach, there has been a tendency to overlook or else dismiss the methodological and moral coherence of his work. Providing a synoptic reading of Thompson's oeuvre, this article argues against such disaggreg…
Co-operation and the ‘new consumerism’ in interwar England
Economic historians have recently taught us a great deal about the 'new consumerism' in interwar Britain. However, the story has largely been told from the supply side and the Co-operative movement that played a key role in the lives of millions of working-class consumers has tended to be marginalised. This article brings the movement and the consumer centre stage. First, the uneven and vulnerable situation of the Co-op as a business is outlined.…
Consumerism and the co-operative movement in modern British history - By Lawrence Black and Nicole Robertson
Exclusive Dealing in the Chartist Movement
Chartism was a movement of consumers as well as producers. This article explores this hypothesis by considering the development and significance of exclusive dealing and consumers' co-operation, which grew out of this practice, for Chartists. First, the genealogy of the tactic is traced and the way in which exclusive dealing was initially employed by both radicals and Tories highlighted. The article then discusses forms of market exploitation ? p…
Rejoicing in Potatoes: The Politics of Consumption in England During the 'Hungry Forties
In the winter of 1842–3 the protectionist spokesman Robert Bullock Marsham, Warden of Merton College, Oxford, flippantly remarked that although workers could not buy bread they at least ‘rejoiced in potatoes’.1 For a while, during what were undoubtedly some of the hungriest years of the nineteenth century, the hapless Marsham — nicknamed ‘potato Dick’ — was nearly as notorious as Marie-Antoinette had been for a wrongly attributed phrase. Leaders …
Working-Class Writers and the Art of Escapology in Victorian England: The Case of Thomas Frost
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
The Sublime of the Bazaar: A Moment in the Making of a Consumer Culture in Mid-Nineteenth Century England
This article attempts to reconnect the culture with the politics of the campaign for free trade through a case study of the National Anti-Corn Law League Bazaar held at Covent Garden Theatre London in the spring of 1845. Four major themes are considered. First, the ways in which the bazaar pulled together commerce and politics are explored. The League was not only concerned with the abolition of excise duty on staple goods (especially 'the people…
The Battle of the Consumer in Postwar Britain
The Democratic Idiom: Languages of Democracy in the Chartist Movement
The Sublime of the Bazaar: A Moment in the Making of a Consumer Culture in Mid-Nineteenth Century England
This article attempts to reconnect the culture with the politics of the campaign for free trade through a case study of the National Anti-Corn Law League Bazaar held at Covent Garden Theatre London in the spring of 1845. Four major themes are considered. First, the ways in which the bazaar pulled together commerce and politics are explored. The League was not only concerned with the abolition of excise duty on staple goods (especially 'the people…
The Battle of the Consumer in Postwar Britain
Round Table: The Starmer Labour Government in Historical Perspective
The election of Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party on 5 July 2024 after fourteen years of Conservative (mis)rule may represent an important turning point in British political history. At any rate, this was how the new Prime Minister represented his party’s ‘landslide’ victory. Starmer made two short speeches that day, the first to supporters outside London’s Tate Modern art gallery, the second to the wider public outside 10 Downing Street. Similar i…
Voice of Civilisation: Advertising and its critics in austerity Britain
The advertising industry was on the defensive during World War Two, with advertising regarded by many British people as deeply unpatriotic, potentially undermining the national interest and the fight against fascism. This article analyses the debate on the role of advertising in Britain in the immediate aftermath of war, when the advertising industry regrouped to meet the challenge of working within an economic environment shaped by the imperativ…
The Curse of the Co-ops’: Co-operation, the Mass Press and the Market in Interwar Britain
Though it continues to be neglected by historians, the British Co-operative movement had 6.5 million members in the early 1930s. The movement’s phenomenal success inevitably brought it into conflict with both private capitalists and government, who sought to contain co-operators’ ambitions. The movement’s ideologues proclaimed that the great lesson of the Depression was that markets ought to be regulated by the democratic will of the people and t…
Co-operation and the ‘new consumerism’ in interwar England
Economic historians have recently taught us a great deal about the 'new consumerism' in interwar Britain. However, the story has largely been told from the supply side and the Co-operative movement that played a key role in the lives of millions of working-class consumers has tended to be marginalised. This article brings the movement and the consumer centre stage. First, the uneven and vulnerable situation of the Co-op as a business is outlined.…
Rejoicing in Potatoes: The Politics of Consumption in England During the 'Hungry Forties
In the winter of 1842–3 the protectionist spokesman Robert Bullock Marsham, Warden of Merton College, Oxford, flippantly remarked that although workers could not buy bread they at least ‘rejoiced in potatoes’.1 For a while, during what were undoubtedly some of the hungriest years of the nineteenth century, the hapless Marsham — nicknamed ‘potato Dick’ — was nearly as notorious as Marie-Antoinette had been for a wrongly attributed phrase. Leaders …
Working-Class Writers and the Art of Escapology in Victorian England: The Case of Thomas Frost
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Redefining ‘the woman with the basket’: The Women's Co‐operative Guild and the Politics of Consumption in Britain during the Second World War
Over recent decades, historians of gender have transformed our understanding of the impact of total war on British society. Feminist scholars in particular have been drawn to this field of research because, as Margaret and Patrice Higonnet suggested in an influential essay, war 'crystallizes contradictions between ideology and actual experience'. 1 Mass mobilisation necessitated by total war blurred boundaries between military and home fronts and…
The Battle of the Consumer in Postwar Britain
Working-Class Writers and the Art of Escapology in Victorian England: The Case of Thomas Frost
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
The Sublime of the Bazaar: A Moment in the Making of a Consumer Culture in Mid-Nineteenth Century England
This article attempts to reconnect the culture with the politics of the campaign for free trade through a case study of the National Anti-Corn Law League Bazaar held at Covent Garden Theatre London in the spring of 1845. Four major themes are considered. First, the ways in which the bazaar pulled together commerce and politics are explored. The League was not only concerned with the abolition of excise duty on staple goods (especially 'the people…
Exclusive Dealing in the Chartist Movement
Chartism was a movement of consumers as well as producers. This article explores this hypothesis by considering the development and significance of exclusive dealing and consumers' co-operation, which grew out of this practice, for Chartists. First, the genealogy of the tactic is traced and the way in which exclusive dealing was initially employed by both radicals and Tories highlighted. The article then discusses forms of market exploitation ? p…
Rejoicing in Potatoes: The Politics of Consumption in England During the 'Hungry Forties
In the winter of 1842–3 the protectionist spokesman Robert Bullock Marsham, Warden of Merton College, Oxford, flippantly remarked that although workers could not buy bread they at least ‘rejoiced in potatoes’.1 For a while, during what were undoubtedly some of the hungriest years of the nineteenth century, the hapless Marsham — nicknamed ‘potato Dick’ — was nearly as notorious as Marie-Antoinette had been for a wrongly attributed phrase. Leaders …
Consumerism and the co-operative movement in modern British history - By Lawrence Black and Nicole Robertson
Co-operation and the ‘new consumerism’ in interwar England
Economic historians have recently taught us a great deal about the 'new consumerism' in interwar Britain. However, the story has largely been told from the supply side and the Co-operative movement that played a key role in the lives of millions of working-class consumers has tended to be marginalised. This article brings the movement and the consumer centre stage. First, the uneven and vulnerable situation of the Co-op as a business is outlined.…
History and Commitment: E.P. Thompson's Legacy
Fifty years after the publication of his groundbreaking study, The Making of the English Working Class, E.P. Thompson's legacy remains controversial. While the dominant liberal historical establishment has assimilated certain aspects of his approach, there has been a tendency to overlook or else dismiss the methodological and moral coherence of his work. Providing a synoptic reading of Thompson's oeuvre, this article argues against such disaggreg…
The Democratic Idiom: Languages of Democracy in the Chartist Movement
The Curse of the Co-ops’: Co-operation, the Mass Press and the Market in Interwar Britain
Though it continues to be neglected by historians, the British Co-operative movement had 6.5 million members in the early 1930s. The movement’s phenomenal success inevitably brought it into conflict with both private capitalists and government, who sought to contain co-operators’ ambitions. The movement’s ideologues proclaimed that the great lesson of the Depression was that markets ought to be regulated by the democratic will of the people and t…
Social Opulence and Private Restraint: The Consumer in British Socialist Thought Since 1800
Social Opulence and Private Restraint: The Consumer in British Socialist Thought Since 1800." Cultural and Social History, 15(2), pp. 280–281
Voice of Civilisation: Advertising and its critics in austerity Britain
The advertising industry was on the defensive during World War Two, with advertising regarded by many British people as deeply unpatriotic, potentially undermining the national interest and the fight against fascism. This article analyses the debate on the role of advertising in Britain in the immediate aftermath of war, when the advertising industry regrouped to meet the challenge of working within an economic environment shaped by the imperativ…
Co-operation and Communism cannot work side by side’: Organized Consumers and the Early Cold War in Britain
This article contributes to a better understanding of labour anti-communism in Britain through an exploration of the evolution of ideas and attitudes within the co-operative movement during the early Cold War. It demonstrates that the period witnessed an increasingly rigid separation of co-operation from communism and argues that this separation made it harder for activists within the co-operative movement to imagine a total or utopian alternativ…
Redefining ‘the woman with the basket’: The Women's Co‐operative Guild and the Politics of Consumption in Britain during the Second World War
Over recent decades, historians of gender have transformed our understanding of the impact of total war on British society. Feminist scholars in particular have been drawn to this field of research because, as Margaret and Patrice Higonnet suggested in an influential essay, war 'crystallizes contradictions between ideology and actual experience'. 1 Mass mobilisation necessitated by total war blurred boundaries between military and home fronts and…
Contemporary Thought on Nineteenth Century Socialism: Socialism and Co-operation in Britain 1850–1918
This second volume considers various socialist impulses and developments after the collapse of the Owenite movement in Britain. Interventions by some leading Christian Socialists will illuminate one important tendency; publications by O’Brien another less vital strand. Central to this volume, however, will be far less well-known pamphlets, book extracts and articles in the periodical press by national and local co-operative writers and activists,…
Contemporary Thought on Nineteenth Century Socialism
Round Table: The New Cold War
First paragraph: The ongoing conflict in Ukraine is having profound repercussions in Britain, not least on our cultural and intellectual life. However, although the media has presented this unfolding crisis in exhaustive detail, no one could reasonably argue that there has been much depth to the general treatment. From the outset, media coverage has been superficial and woefully lacking in objectivity, with briefings by President Zelensky and oth…
Building a Social Science: Nineteenth-Century British Cooperative Thought , by Kirsten Madden and Joseph Persky
Round Table: The Starmer Labour Government in Historical Perspective
The election of Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party on 5 July 2024 after fourteen years of Conservative (mis)rule may represent an important turning point in British political history. At any rate, this was how the new Prime Minister represented his party’s ‘landslide’ victory. Starmer made two short speeches that day, the first to supporters outside London’s Tate Modern art gallery, the second to the wider public outside 10 Downing Street. Similar i…
Rethinking the Language of Chartism
For decades, the study of Chartism has been one of the most vibrant fields of modern British history. Indeed, this nineteenth-century radical movement was a major empirical focus for proponents of the so-called linguistic turn that has exerted such a major influence on the discipline. Interest in the Chartists does not abate, with valuable recent studies all combining—to greater or lesser extent—close attention to Chartist verbal and symbolic for…
The Chartist Revolution
Political science (16 works) · History (14 works) · Law (12 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Politics (11 works) · History (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Historical Economic and Social Studies (6 works) · Economic history (5 works) · Media studies (4 works)