John Newsinger
Biographic Data
| ID | 3602766 |
|---|---|
| NAME | John Newsinger |
| GIVEN NAMES | John |
| FAMILY NAME | Newsinger |
| SIGNATURE | NEWSINGER J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Bath Spa University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 82 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 81 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 82 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1977 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Empire's Violent End
The Twenty Years’ War
The author, expert in British colonial history, explains the inevitability of the rout of the US/British-installed regime in Afghanistan in 2021 by the Taliban, in terms of the ways in which corruption, drug trafficking, pillage of international aid, war-lordism and non-payment of police and military personnel had been allowed to flourish over the past twenty years
Legacy of Violence
Insurgent Empire
The Skull of Alum Bheg
Covering Conflict
War, Empire and the Attlee government 1945-1951
In this article, adapted from a speech delivered at a conference on reparative history, the author challenges the dominant view of the progressive radicalism of the postwar Attlee government by exposing the brutality of its imperial adventures. Examining British involvement in Vietnam, Indonesia, Greece, Malaya, Kenya, India, Palestine, Iran and Korea, the piece paints a very different and bloody historical narrative from the dominant one. It arg…
Much to be Modest About
What Did You Do During the War? The last throes of the British pro-Nazi Right, 1940-45
The British Labour Party and Twentieth Century Ireland
Why Rhodes Must Fall
The international Rhodes Must Fall campaign has reinvigorated public interest in the legacy of Cecil Rhodes, Empire and the production of historical memory. But it has also been subject to a fierce backlash in the rightwing media, which has fought against the campaign at an Oxford college to remove a statue of Cecil Rhodes both on the grounds of free speech (and the right to offend) and on the grounds that Rhodes must be judged by the standards o…
Private Security Companies during the Iraq War
The Famished Raj
Wars Past and Wars to Come
With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, elements within the U.S. ruling class came to believe that their country was militarily invincible. Indeed, they believed this newfound military superiority over any potential rival was something new in human history. So great was its technological advantage, the United States could destroy its enemies with complete impunity. A long-heralded Revolution in Military Affairs was taki…
Defending the Realm? The Politics of Britain’s Small Wars since 1945, by Aaron Edwards
Monsoon Revolution
Return of the King
Life After Death
Britain’s Noxious History of Imperial Warfare
In his recent widely praised Unfinished Empire: The Global Expansion of Britain, John Darwin....complains that even today there are historians of empire who "feel obliged to proclaim their moral revulsion against it, in case writing about empire might be thought to endorse it." Apparently, he laments, there are still historians who consider it "de rigueur to insist that for them, empire was evil." And, even more incredibly, there are some histori…
The British counter-insurgency myth
The British Army has an unjustified reputation for expertise and moderation in postwar counter-insurgency operations. David French in The British Way in Counter-Insurgency 1945-1967 and Andrew Mumford in The Counter-Insurgency Myth both demolish that reputation. French uses extensive evidence to reveal the consistent use of tactics of coercion and terror to fight insurgency, while the British public were fed lies about 'winning hearts and minds',…
Cables from Kabul
The Labour Party and the World, Vol. 2
Taking Baghdad
The figure of the marine is not only the embodiment of US militarism, but also a major icon of popular culture. The Marine Corps was prominently deployed in the invasion of Iraq, as it has been in all major US military enterprises. But while there has been much and ongoing discussion about that war, less attention has been paid to its increasing impact on mainstream American culture. In this groundbreaking account, the author reviews and analyses…
America Right or Wrong
British subordination to the United States, the so-called special relationship as it is optimistically known in London, is so taken for granted that it is seldom subjected to critical scrutiny. Why is it that the British ruling class and its agents have since 1945 come to embrace a junior partnership in the U.S. empire so wholeheartedly? Most recently, the "special relationship" has seen the New Labor government actively support and take part in …
Liberal imperialism and the occupation of Egypt in 1882
The US occupation of Iraq and the ongoing war throw up a number of parallels with British imperial history. Outstanding in this regard is the Gladstone government's 1882 invasion of Egypt, ostensibly to oust a despotic military government. In fact, the many decades-long occupation saw the country virtually bankrupted, suppressed a modernising Islamic movement for constitutional democracy and, in the fall-out from this, fostered in the Sudan a mor…
Why Rhodes Must Fall
The international Rhodes Must Fall campaign has reinvigorated public interest in the legacy of Cecil Rhodes, Empire and the production of historical memory. But it has also been subject to a fierce backlash in the rightwing media, which has fought against the campaign at an Oxford college to remove a statue of Cecil Rhodes both on the grounds of free speech (and the right to offend) and on the grounds that Rhodes must be judged by the standards o…
Minimum force, British Counter‐Insurgency and the Mau Mau rebellion
(1992). Minimum force, British Counter‐Insurgency and the Mau Mau rebellion. Small Wars & Insurgencies: Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 47-57
From counter‐insurgency to internal security
(1995). From counter‐insurgency to internal security: Northern Ireland 1969–1992. Small Wars & Insurgencies: Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 88-111
Revolt and Repression in Kenya
Rebel City
REBEL CITY is a study of the great labour revolt in Ireland and of the development of Irish trade unionism and syndicalism. It focuses on the relationship between Larkin and the Dublin labour movement, and considers the influence of syndicalism and Marxism in the theory and activity of James Connolly. Newsinger studies the condition of the Irish Labour in the years running up to the start of World War One: social, economic and cultural conditions…
Blackshirts, Blueshirts, and the Spanish Civil War
The object of this review is to examine recent developments in our understanding of Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts, of Eoin O'Duffy's Blueshirts, and of British and Irish participation in the Spanish Civil War. It argues that fascism can be understood as having three possible phases of development and considers British and Irish fascism from that standpoint. Debates about the nature of British fascism are considered, its attitude towards violence, t…
The Catholic Church in Nineteenth-Century Ireland
Connolly and his biographers
James Connolly has been the subject of numerous biographical studies. Until recently these have all accepted that his political ideas, especially with regard to the relationship between socialism and nationalism, remained substantially the same from the time of his arrival in Ireland until his execution by the British after the Easter Rising. He was, it was argued, putting the ideas he held in 1896 into practice in 1916. This interpretation has r…
Priests and People in Ireland
Priests and People in Ireland Get access S. J. CONNOLLY Priests and People in Pre-Famine Ireland 1780–1845Dublin, Gill and Macmillan 1982 John Newsinger John Newsinger Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar History Workshop Journal, Volume 17, Issue 1, SPRING 1984, Pages 172–175, https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/17.1.172 Published: 01 March 1984
War, Empire and the Attlee government 1945-1951
In this article, adapted from a speech delivered at a conference on reparative history, the author challenges the dominant view of the progressive radicalism of the postwar Attlee government by exposing the brutality of its imperial adventures. Examining British involvement in Vietnam, Indonesia, Greece, Malaya, Kenya, India, Palestine, Iran and Korea, the piece paints a very different and bloody historical narrative from the dominant one. It arg…
Monsoon Revolution
Liberal imperialism and the occupation of Egypt in 1882
The US occupation of Iraq and the ongoing war throw up a number of parallels with British imperial history. Outstanding in this regard is the Gladstone government's 1882 invasion of Egypt, ostensibly to oust a despotic military government. In fact, the many decades-long occupation saw the country virtually bankrupted, suppressed a modernising Islamic movement for constitutional democracy and, in the fall-out from this, fostered in the Sudan a mor…
The American connection
Pox Britannica
L'A. s'interesse a l'œuvre de l'ecrivain anglais G. Orwell. Il etudie plus particulierement son attitude envers l'imperialisme britannique. Il souligne que celui-ci fut, dans sa jeunesse, membre de la police coloniale en Inde. Il montre qu'il devint, a partir de 1935, au travers de son livre «Burmese Days», un farouche adversaire du colonialisme. Il evoque l'engagement d'Orwell dans les milices du P.O.U.M. pendant la guerre civile espagnole. Il e…
Supporting 'Our Boys
Covering Conflict
The Labour Party and the World, Vol. 2
Taking Baghdad
The figure of the marine is not only the embodiment of US militarism, but also a major icon of popular culture. The Marine Corps was prominently deployed in the invasion of Iraq, as it has been in all major US military enterprises. But while there has been much and ongoing discussion about that war, less attention has been paid to its increasing impact on mainstream American culture. In this groundbreaking account, the author reviews and analyses…
Recent Controversies in the History of British Communism
Susan Bruley, Leninism, Stalinism and the Women's Movement in Britain 1920-1939, New York, Garland. 1986: pp. 324: ISBN 0824019121 Nina Fishman, The British Communist Party and the Trade Unions 1933-1945, London, Scolar, 1995; pp. 300; ISBN 1859281168 Kevin Morgan, Against Fascism and War. Ruptures and Continuities in British Communist Politics 1935-1941, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1989; pp. 336; ISBN 0719030781 Neil Redfern, Class …
Britain's Opium Wars
It is a little known fact that during the reign of Queen Victoria, the British capitalist state was the largest drug pusher the world has ever seen. The smuggling of opium into China was by the 1830s a source of huge profits, played a crucial role in the financing of British rule in India and was the underpinning of British trade throughout the East. This is one of those little historical details that are often overlooked in the history books whe…
The Great Irish Famine
Writing in the Nation newspaper in the early summer of 1847, John Mitchel described a journey through Connaught. He and his companions arrived at a village where they had been hospitably received two years earlier: But why do we not see the smoke curling from those lowly chimneys? And surely we ought by this time to scent the well-known aroma of the turf-fires. But what...what reeking breath of hell is this oppressing the air, heavier and more lo…
Thatcher, Northern Ireland and ‘the downing street years’
(1994). Thatcher, Northern Ireland and ‘the downing street years’. Irish Studies Review: Vol. 2, No. 7, pp. 2-6
The military memoir in British imperial culture
L'A. examine l'ensemble de la litterature (Spencer Chapman, John Croos, Robert Hamond, Nona Baker, Oliver Crawford, Anthony Crockett, Frank Kitson, Richard Miers, etc.) sur la lutte revolutionnaire des Chinois-Malais, notamment du MCP (Chinese Malayan Communist Party) contre l'imperialisme japonais, incluant des renseignements sur la vie de combat et de lutte des guerillas communistes contre l'armee japonaise. Cette litterature fournit un portrai…
A Lamp to Guide Your Feet
At present you spend your lives in sordid labour and your abode in filthy slums; your children hunger, and your masters say your slavery must endure for ever. If you would come out of bondage yourself must forge the weapons and fight the grim battle. The written word is the most potent force in our modern world. The Irish Worker will be a lamp to guide your feet in the dark hours of the impending struggle; a well of truth reflecting the purity of…
Revolution and Counterrevolution
The year 1989 marked the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution. In France itself, however, and in the capitalist world generally, the anniversary was "celebrated as a funeral to proclaim, with the help of the media and the fashionable historians, that the age of revolution is over. There was history but it has no future. The reign of capital is eternal." (Daniel Singer, "On Revolution," MR, June 1989) But in all this outpouring there was not…
In Praise of Sean O'Casey
Journal Article In Praise of Sean O'Casey Get access John Newsinger John Newsinger Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar History Workshop Journal, Volume 4, Issue 1, AUTUMN 1977, Pages 230–233, https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/4.1.230 Published: 01 October 1977
I Bring Not Peace But A Sword
Revolt and Repression in Kenya
The Easter Rebellion
The participation of the working-class Irish Citizen Army in the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin was criticized at the time by many socialists, who saw the insurrection as a foredoomed adventure, inspired by petty bourgeois nationalist aims and having nothing to do with the struggle for socialism. A few months after the event, Lenin wrote a sharp reply to one of these critics, Karl Radek, and forcefully defended James Connolly and his comrades again…
A great blow must be struck in Ireland
James Connolly and the Easter Rising
Lyrics by The Flying Turkey
Priests and People in Ireland
Priests and People in Ireland Get access S. J. CONNOLLY Priests and People in Pre-Famine Ireland 1780–1845Dublin, Gill and Macmillan 1982 John Newsinger John Newsinger Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar History Workshop Journal, Volume 17, Issue 1, SPRING 1984, Pages 172–175, https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/17.1.172 Published: 01 March 1984
In the Hunger-Cry of the Nation's Poor is Heard the Voice of Ireland
Mau Mau—30 Years Later
The Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya that lasted from 1952 until 1960 is virtually unknown in Britain today. This is not an accident. The rebellion was a serious challenge to the position of British imperialism, not only in Kenya but throughout Africa, and it was accordingly crushed with massive repression and bloodshed.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase …
Historical Materialism and the Catholic Church
In the July-August 1984 issue of Monthly Review, the editors prefaced a number of articles on "Religion and the Left" with the recognition that Marxists are "often brought up in a tradition of atheism and anticlericalism [and] are quite likely to look upon the religious left as unreliable, a sort of temporary aberration which may one day even turn into its opposite." These fears, they write, cannot just be dismissed as "unfounded or... dispelled …
Lord Greystoke and Darkest Africa
A forgotten war
A Lamp to Guide Your Feet
At present you spend your lives in sordid labour and your abode in filthy slums; your children hunger, and your masters say your slavery must endure for ever. If you would come out of bondage yourself must forge the weapons and fight the grim battle. The written word is the most potent force in our modern world. The Irish Worker will be a lamp to guide your feet in the dark hours of the impending struggle; a well of truth reflecting the purity of…
Revolution and Counterrevolution
The year 1989 marked the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution. In France itself, however, and in the capitalist world generally, the anniversary was "celebrated as a funeral to proclaim, with the help of the media and the fashionable historians, that the age of revolution is over. There was history but it has no future. The reign of capital is eternal." (Daniel Singer, "On Revolution," MR, June 1989) But in all this outpouring there was not…
Connolly and his biographers
James Connolly has been the subject of numerous biographical studies. Until recently these have all accepted that his political ideas, especially with regard to the relationship between socialism and nationalism, remained substantially the same from the time of his arrival in Ireland until his execution by the British after the Easter Rising. He was, it was argued, putting the ideas he held in 1896 into practice in 1916. This interpretation has r…
Crisis
A counter-insurgency tale
Among the most important and revealing first-hand accounts of modern British counter-insurgency operations is Frank Kitson’s Gangs and Counter-Gangs, a memoir of his experiences during the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya. According to one recent apologetic study of British colonial wars this century, Kitson’s book ’graphically etches the career of the lone officer in the exotic unknown ’ and ’ bears comparison with the works of T.E. Lawrence, not leas…
The British Intervention in Vietnam, 1945–1946
The Vietnam wars did not begin with the French return to Vietnam at the end of the Second World War, but with the British intervention that preceded it. The story of this intervention ought to be more widely known.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website
Ulster and the downfall of the Labour government 1974-79
Supporting 'Our Boys
Soapbox revisionism
Minimum force, British Counter‐Insurgency and the Mau Mau rebellion
(1992). Minimum force, British Counter‐Insurgency and the Mau Mau rebellion. Small Wars & Insurgencies: Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 47-57
An Episode in the Larkin Wars
Christopher Hitchens’ article on ‘Larkin and “Sensitivity” ’ in nlr 200 is as energetic an exercise in sectarian bile as I have seen on the Left in recent years. My seven-page review of Larkin’s Selected Letters that appeared in the journal Race and Class seems to have
Thatcher, Northern Ireland and ‘the downing street years’
(1994). Thatcher, Northern Ireland and ‘the downing street years’. Irish Studies Review: Vol. 2, No. 7, pp. 2-6
Political science (59 works) · History (56 works) · Sociology (40 works) · History (37 works) · Law (36 works) · Law (26 works) · Politics (24 works) · Ancient history (21 works) · Economic history (21 works) · Irish and British Studies (20 works)