The Conservative Movement and Dreams of Britain's Post-War Future
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8959411 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kit Kowol (0000-0002-2516-9780, Christ University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 62 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 473-493 |
| Publication date | 2018-01-10 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Historical Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0018-246X • E-ISSN: 1469-5103 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0018246x17000449 |
| OpenAlex | W2784094255 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 37 |
The British general election of 1945 and the return of the nation's first ever majority Labour government was a profound turning point in Britain's political history. The scale of Labour's victory, and the belief in its inevitability, has, however, obscured important developments in British Conservatism. Historians have subsequently characterized the Conservative party as either unwilling to develop their own distinct plans for the post-war future, or divided between those who were willing to embrace the policies of social democracy and those with a neo-liberal approach to political economy. This article challenges this depiction by examining the thoughts and actions of those within what it terms the wartime ‘Conservative movement’: the constellation of fringe and pressure groups that orbited around the Conservative party during the period. In examining this movement, it identifies three major traditions of Conservative political thinking, and three sets of activists and parliamentarians all committed to developing radical Conservative plans for post-war Britain. The article demonstrates how these different traditions built upon but also radicalized pre-existing currents of Conservative thought, how the language of social democracy was co-opted and reinterpreted by those within the Conservative movement, and how the war changed Conservative perception of the British people
Conservatism · Democracy · Depiction · Economic history · Historiography · Literature · New Right · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Victory · French Historical and Cultural Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · History · Law · Political and Economic history of UK and US
War and social change
The conservative intellectual movement in America, since 1945
The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism
The Free Economy and the Strong State
Thinking The Unthinkable
The Periodical Press and the Intellectual Culture of Conservatism in Interwar Britain
Enoch Powell and the Making of Postcolonial Britain
The Conservative Party and 'Radical Conservatism', 1880-1914
Decentering Tradition
Thatcherism
The Battle of Guadalajara, 8-22 March 1937
Winston Churchill's “Crazy Broadcast”
The Religion of Englishness
An Experiment in Conservative Modernity
Christian conservatives and the totalitarian challenge, 1933-40
Middle Opinion in the Thirties
Lord Salisbury s ''Watching Committee' and the Fall of Neville Chamberlain, May 1940
The Next Five Years Group and the Failure of the Politics of Agreement in Britain
At the Origins of Neo-Liberalism
What did ‘the people’ want
Political Movements in Urban England, 1832–1914
Resisting Totalitarianism
Labour's War. The Labour Party during the Second World War
| Citations per year | 0.67 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2020 - 2024 (5) |
| Highly cited | No |