Modern Wales – serie

This edition celebrates the centenary of Williams's birth.RAYMOND WILLIAMS (1921-1998) was the most influentialsocialist writer and thinker in post-war Britain. Now, for thefirst time, making full use of Williams's private and unpublishedpapers and by placing him in a wide social and culturallandscape, Dai Smith, in this highly original and much praisedbiography, uncovers how Williams's life to 1961 is an explanationof his immense intellectual achievement."It is Smith's ambition to set out the lonely, almost monastic pathRaymond took through childhood, army and adult educationtowards his deserved eminence. But the biographer's greatestachievement is to find his own discerning route through whatoften seems to be a jungle of contradiction... This is a worthwhilebook and a very good one."- David Hare, The Guardian"It is a remarkable piece of work and will henceforth be essentialto the understanding of the making of Raymond Williams."- Eric Hobsbawm"Becomes at once the authoritative account... Smith has done allthat we can ask the historian as biographer to do."- Stefan Collini, London Review of Books"Carrying an impressive deal of intensive research lightly... theportraiture throughout is graphic, richly detailed and subtlyshaded... in these packed, lucidly written pages..."- Terry Eagleton, New Welsh Review

Since the end of WWI, one party has held the momentum of politicaland social change in south Wales: the Labour Party. Its triumph wasnever fully guaranteed. It came quickly amidst a torrent of ideas,actions, and war. But the result was a vibrant, effective and long-lasting democracy. The result was Labour Country.In this bold, controversial book, Daryl Leeworthy takes a fresh andprovocative look at the struggle through radical political action forsocial democracy in Wales. The reasons for Labour's triumph, heargues, lay in radical pragmatism and an ability to harness loftyideals with meaningful practicality. This was a place of dreamersas well as doers. The world of Arthur Horner and Aneurin Bevan.And yet, as the author shows, this history is now over. Althougha trajectory leads from the end of the Miners' Strike both tothe advent of devolution and the circumstances that led to theBrexit vote in 2016, these are exits from Labour Country, not acontinuation. Sustained by a powerful synthesis of scholarship andoriginal research, passionate and committed, this book brings thecubist epic of south Wales and its politics to life.

Jeffrey Weeks has been called 'the 'most significant Britishintellectual working on sexuality to emerge from the radicalsexual movements of the 1970s'. Yet behind the titles andacclaim lies the story of a hugely fascinating, inspirational life- one both immersed in love and blighted by pain and loss.Growing up in a tight-knit mining community in the post-warRhondda Valleys, Weeks knew from a young age that he wasdifferent. However, grappling with his burgeoning gaynessamid this hotbed of sexual conservatism and traditional genderdivisions, his initial explorations into this uniqueness led to littlemore than isolation and shame.Finding salvation in his studies, university brought with it alife-defining opportunity to thrive within the radical culture oflate sixties and seventies London. He soon found himself at theforefront of the new gay liberation movement, and his work as itspioneering historian would spark a long career as a researcher andwriter on sexuality, with widespread national and internationalrecognition.

Philip Burton (1904-95) is best remembered as the schoolmaster responsible for training and transforming his pupil Richard Jenkins into Richard Burton, world- famous star of stage and screen. Together they produced a remarkable symbiosis. The stage-struck Philip Burton was present behind the scenes for the rest of the actor's life, intervening at crucial moments to ensure consummate stage performances in, for example, Coriolanus, Hamlet and Camelot. This biography, drawing upon a number of previously unseen sources, provides a fresh angle on this compelling story.And by placing Philip Burton's story centre stage, a remarkable figure also emerges in his own right. In a life that virtually spanned the twentieth century, he demonstrated resilience and transatlantic triumph against the odds.Like his best-known protege, he was born into an impoverished South Wales mining family. Alongside teaching, he acted, wrote and produced plays and in 1945, with wireless at its height, he became a BBC radio producer. He worked on almost 200 radio programmes, encouraging newcomers and producing work by Dylan Thomas. He wrote scripts for the fledgling television and penned its first 'soap.'Reinventing himself in the mid-1950s, Philip Burton moved to the United States where, after dabbling in the film industry and working as a theatre director, he became the inspirational first director of the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York. He took American citizenship and travelled across the States, delivering sparkling Shakespearean lecture-recitals. He published five books, living in Key West, Florida from the 1970s. Philip Burton died in 1995 aged ninety, his expertise and encouragement having enabled numerous aspiring actors and writers to flourish on both sides of the Atlantic.

Points The latest title in Parthian’s Modern Wales series.Minnie Pallister’s life was so fantastic that not even a thriller writer could imagine it. A feminist, pacifist and socialist, she was twice accused of sedition in the First World War before travelling to Nazi Germany in late 1938 and 1939 to rescue Jews, helping bring them to Britain at the outbreak of the Second World War. In between, having reached national prominence in the labour movement, in which she was considered the best woman orator, and with a Parliamentary career beckoning, she was struck down by an illness which cruelly robbed her of speech. Suffering years of paralysing infirmity, which reduced her to the edge of penury, she eventually recovered to become a successful journalist with the Daily Mirror and the Daily Herald.Fearless and principled and always challenging, not least in advocating gender equality, Pallister was initially barred from a position with the BBC because of her socialist politics, and later twice banned by the Corporation, first for her pacifist then her feminist politics. An outstanding broadcaster who became for a time a household name, she was a regular contributor to Woman’s Hour and as an advocate of women’s rights from the 1920s to the 1950s, she was a forerunner of the Women’s Liberation Movement. Pallister was such a compelling figure that her ‘Life Story’ was serialised on radio over five days during her lifetime.

Minnie Pallister's life was so fantastic that not even a thrillerwriter could imagine it. A feminist, pacifist and socialist, she was twice accused of sedition in the First World War before travelling to Nazi Germany in late 1938 and 1939 to rescue Jews, helping bring them to Britain at the outbreak of the Second World War.In between, having reached national prominence in the labour movement, in which she was considered the best woman orator, and with a Parliamentary career beckoning, she was struck down by an illness which cruelly robbed her of speech. Suffering years of paralysing infirmity, which reduced her to the edge of penury, she eventually recovered to become a successful journalist with the Daily Mirror and the Daily Herald.Fearless and principled and always challenging, not least in advocating gender equality, Pallister was initially barred from a position with the BBC because of her socialist politics, and later twice banned by the Corporation, first for her pacifist then her feminist politics. An outstanding broadcaster who became for a time a household name, she was a regular contributor to Woman's Hour and as an advocate of women's rights from the 1920s to the 1950s, she was a forerunner of the Women's Liberation Movement. Pallister was such a compelling figure that her 'Life Story' was serialised on radio over five days during her lifetime.