Semi-Detached Idealists

Britain's semi-detached geographical position has helped to give it the world's strongest peace movement. Secure enough from invasions to be influenced by an idealistic approach to international relations (unlike most of Europe), yet too close to the continent for isolationism to be an option (as it was in the United States), the country has provided favourable conditions for those aspiring not merely to prevent war but to abolish it. The period from the Crimean War to the Second World War marked the British peace movement's age of maturity. In 1854, it was obliged for the first time to contest a decision - and moreover a highly popular one - to enter war. It survived the resulting adversity, and gradually rebuilt its position as an accepted voice in public life, though by the end of the nineteenth century its leading associations such as the Peace Society were losing vitality as they gained respectability. Stimulated bythe First World War into radicalizing and reconstructing itself through the formation of such associations as the Union of Democratic Control, the No-Conscription Fellowship, and the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the movement endured another period of unpopularity before enjoying unprecedentedinfluence during the inter-war years, the era of the League of Nations Union, the Oxford Union's 'King and country' debate, the Peace Ballot, and the Peace Pledge Union. Finally, however, Hitler discredited much of the agenda it had been promoting the previous century or more. This book is the first comprehensive and authoritative study of this subject. It covers all significant peace associations and campaigns and is based on an extensive use of archival as well as printed sources. Its subject matter is of relevance both to historians of nineteenth and twentieth-century British politics and to specialists in international relations interested in the anti-realist tradition.

[Ceadel] is the foremost historian of the peace movement in Britain today. The breadth of his scholarship is a joy; the bibliography is a remarkable resource. Anywone with an interest in the roots of the peace movement would be impressed by his research, especially into the 19th century Peace Society ... This is an invaluable reference book ... It is an outstanding work and one for which Ceadel should be commended., Ceadel's terminological exactitude is just one more reason why nobody does it better. Semi-Detached is how it can and should be done in the field of peace studies. It is also about as good as the academy gets., Martin Ceadel's status as the pre-eminent historiographer and student of peace politics is confirmed by this latest offering. Bringing together research and writing conducted over three decades, Semi-Detached considers the peace movement's 'age of maturity' (ie. Crimean War to World War Two) in a painstaking and graceful fashion. Ceadel appreciates detail like Sherlock Holmes., Ceadel's solid no-nonsense recounting of peace movement activities in the years leading up to the Second World War provides a unique perspective on the familiar events of that grim decade ... Every student of the British peace movement and its ancillary groups and bodies of opinion must become familiar with this study., Martin Ceadel's history of peace organizations in Britain from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century is the most complete that we have, or are likely to have for a long time.