Futures of Socialism

Colm Murphy is Lecturer in British Politics at Queen Mary University of London and Deputy Director of the Mile End Institute. He was previously Past & Present Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research. He has published in History Workshop Journal, Twentieth Century British History, and Renewal: A Journal of Social Democracy.

'Futures of Socialism makes a major contribution to our understanding of the British Left between the rise of Thatcherism and the emergence of New Labour. The book is a deft and nuanced exploration of Labour's late twentieth-century modernisation. It will undoubtedly become a touchstone in the history of the contemporary Left.' Stephen J. Brooke, York University, Canada

• Introduction: The plural modernisations of the British left; Part I. Social Democracy and the Challenge to the Nation-State: 1. 'Keynes is dead, Beveridge is dead': modernisation, globalisation, and European integration; 2. Industrial democracy, market socialism, and stakeholder capitalism: modernisation and socioeconomic democracy; Part II. Identities and Mmodern Socialism': 3. 'An old working class may be waning, but a new one is being born'? Gender, Labour, and modernisation; 4. A telling absence: race, multiculturalism, and modernisation; Part III. The Search for a Modernising Social Democracy; 5. 'A modern democracy': modernisation and constitutional reform; 6. White heat to interactive whiteboard: modernisation and Labour's economic strategy; Conclusion: contested futures of socialism in Britain's late twentieth century.