Militarism and the British Left, 1902-1914

Militarism has traditionally been regarded as a phenomenon of the political right. As this book demonstrates, however, various groups on the political left in Britain during the years before the Great War were able to accommodate, and even assimilate, militaristic ideas, sentiments, and policies to a remarkable degree.

'An analytically rigorous and thoroughly researched challenge to the influential and simplistic identification of early twentieth century British militarism with the Radical Right. The insistence on grounding the analysis of British militarism in context liberates assessment of claims for British exceptionalism from constricting comparisons with a paradigmatic Prussianism.' - Professor David Howell, University of York

MATTHEW JOHNSON is the Stevenson Junior Research Fellow in History at University College, Oxford, UK. This is his first book.