Steven Fielding – författare

This is not a book about Winston Churchill. It is not principally about his politics, nor his rhetorical imagination, nor even about the man himself. Instead, it addresses the varied afterlives of the man and the persistent, deeply located compulsion to bring him back from the dead, capturing and explaining the significance of the various Churchill myths to Britain's history and current politics.The authors look at Churchill's portrayal in social memory. They demonstrate the ways in which politicians have often used the idea of Churchill as a means of self-validation - using him to show themselves as tough and honest players. They show the man dramatized in film and television - an onscreen persona that is often the product of a gratuitous mixing of fact and fantasy, one deliberately shaped to meet the preferences of the presumed audience. They discuss his legacy in light of the Brexit debate - showing how public figures on both sides of the Leave/Remain debate were able to use elements of Churchill's words and character to argue for their own point-of-view.

The Blair government is much less novel and distinctive than has been assumed by most commentators who have, Steven Fielding argues, taken too much of its rhetoric at face value. Setting recent developments in a broader historical context, this major new text on the British Labour Party provides a balanced account of its present state and how it got there. The Labour Party is forever changing - though generally within long-established parameters. 'New' Labour is but the latest example of this process.

Interpreting the Labour Party consists of twelve essays on the principal thinkers and schools of thought concerned with the political and historical development of the Labour Party and Labour movement. The essays are written by contributors who have devoted many years to the study of the Labour Party, the trade union movement and the various ideologies associated with them. The book begins with an in-depth analysis of how to study the Labour Party, and goes on to examine key periods in the development of the ideologies to which the party has subscribed. Each chapter situates its subject matter in the context of a broader intellectual legacy, including the works of Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Theodore Rothstein, Stuart Hall and Samuel Beer, among others.

This book, newly available in paperback, is the first in the new series The Labour governments, 1964–70 and concentrates on Britain's domestic policy during Harold Wilson’s tenure as Prime Minister.The book deals, in particular, with how the Labour government and Labour party as a whole tried to come to terms with the 1960s 'cultural revolution'. It is grounded in original research, takes unique account of responses from Labour's grass roots and from Wilson’s ministerial colleagues, and constructs a 'total history' of the party at this critical moment in history.Steven Fielding situates Labour in its wider cultural context and focuses on how the party approached issues such as the apparent transformation of the class structure, the changing place of women, rising black immigration, the apparently widening generation gap and increasing calls for direct participation in politics.The book will be of interest to all those concerned with the development of contemporary British politics and society as well as those researching the 1960s. Together with the other books in the series, on international policy and economic policy, it provides an unrivalled insight into the development of Britain under Harold Wilson’s government.An electronic edition of this book is freely available under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.