Based on a decade of research in over twenty archives, The Chronology of Revolution is an accessible and richly detailed work of historical and cultural analysis that fixes its gaze on the legacy of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). Communists anticipated that the party, formed in the world''s first industrialized nation, would be in the vanguard of world revolution. Instead, the party never came close to matching the political power of the British Labour Party or continental Communist Parties in France or Italy and dissolved itself in 1991.

In this book, Ben Harker draws on the ideas of Antonio Gramsci to argue that the CPGB, despite having great influence over British culture, never fully appreciated the importance of civil society to its political strength. Analysing party members’ efforts in fields such as science, journalism, the arts, broadcasting, and education, The Chronology of Revolution offers an alternative, radical history of Britain between 1920 and 1991 that draws out important lessons for the contemporary Left.

Based on a decade of research in over twenty archives, The Chronology of Revolution is an accessible and richly detailed work of historical and cultural analysis that fixes its gaze on the legacy of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). Communists anticipated that the party, formed in the world''s first industrialized nation, would be in the vanguard of world revolution. Instead, the party never came close to matching the political power of the British Labour Party or continental Communist Parties in France or Italy and dissolved itself in 1991.

In this book, Ben Harker draws on the ideas of Antonio Gramsci to argue that the CPGB, despite having great influence over British culture, never fully appreciated the importance of civil society to its political strength. Analysing party members’ efforts in fields such as science, journalism, the arts, broadcasting, and education, The Chronology of Revolution offers an alternative, radical history of Britain between 1920 and 1991 that draws out important lessons for the contemporary Left.

Montagu Slater (1902-1956) is best-known today as the librettist of Benjamin Britten’s opera Peter Grimes (1945). But he was also a novelist, playwright, journalist, scriptwriter – and a poet.

A committed communist from the late 1920s, he was a leading figure in the cultural world of the mid-century left, and co-founded and edited Left Review in the 1930s and was theatre editor of Our Time in the 1940s. He worked with Britten, John Grierson, W.H. Auden and Alberto Cavalcanti at the GPO Film Unit, where he scripted the influential Coal Face (1935). His novels included Haunting Europe (1934) about the rise of Hitler, Once a Jolly Swagman (1944) about speedway racing (filmed starring Dirk Bogarde) and Englishmen with Swords (1949) about the English Civil War. His abiding anti-imperialism found expression in the play, Easter: 1916 (1936), and in his last book, The Trial of Jomo Kenyatta (1955).

The Collected Poems of Montagu Slater includes the poems from Slater’s only published collection, Peter Grimes and other Poems (1946), alongside poetry originally published in periodicals and newspapers. It also brings into print previously unpublished poems from Slater’s papers at the University of Nottingham.

Based on a decade of research in over twenty archives, The Chronology of Revolution is an accessible and richly detailed work of historical and cultural analysis that fixes its gaze on the legacy of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). Communists anticipated that the party, formed in the world''s first industrialized nation, would be in the vanguard of world revolution. Instead, the party never came close to matching the political power of the British Labour Party or continental Communist Parties in France or Italy and dissolved itself in 1991.

In this book, Ben Harker draws on the ideas of Antonio Gramsci to argue that the CPGB, despite having great influence over British culture, never fully appreciated the importance of civil society to its political strength. Analysing party members’ efforts in fields such as science, journalism, the arts, broadcasting, and education, The Chronology of Revolution offers an alternative, radical history of Britain between 1920 and 1991 that draws out important lessons for the contemporary Left.

Based on a decade of research in over twenty archives, The Chronology of Revolution is an accessible and richly detailed work of historical and cultural analysis that fixes its gaze on the legacy of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). Communists anticipated that the party, formed in the world''s first industrialized nation, would be in the vanguard of world revolution. Instead, the party never came close to matching the political power of the British Labour Party or continental Communist Parties in France or Italy and dissolved itself in 1991.

In this book, Ben Harker draws on the ideas of Antonio Gramsci to argue that the CPGB, despite having great influence over British culture, never fully appreciated the importance of civil society to its political strength. Analysing party members’ efforts in fields such as science, journalism, the arts, broadcasting, and education, The Chronology of Revolution offers an alternative, radical history of Britain between 1920 and 1991 that draws out important lessons for the contemporary Left.

Montagu Slater (1902-1956) is best-known today as the librettist of Benjamin Britten’s opera Peter Grimes (1945). But he was also a novelist, playwright, journalist, scriptwriter – and a poet.

A committed communist from the late 1920s, he was a leading figure in the cultural world of the mid-century left, and co-founded and edited Left Review in the 1930s and was theatre editor of Our Time in the 1940s. He worked with Britten, John Grierson, W.H. Auden and Alberto Cavalcanti at the GPO Film Unit, where he scripted the influential Coal Face (1935). His novels included Haunting Europe (1934) about the rise of Hitler, Once a Jolly Swagman (1944) about speedway racing (filmed starring Dirk Bogarde) and Englishmen with Swords (1949) about the English Civil War. His abiding anti-imperialism found expression in the play, Easter: 1916 (1936), and in his last book, The Trial of Jomo Kenyatta (1955).

The Collected Poems of Montagu Slater includes the poems from Slater’s only published collection, Peter Grimes and other Poems (1946), alongside poetry originally published in periodicals and newspapers. It also brings into print previously unpublished poems from Slater’s papers at the University of Nottingham.