This book investigates the lives of two important socialist leaders, British-born Tom Mann (1856–1941) and Australian-born Robert Samuel Ross (1873–1931) as connected transnational radicals. In the course of their lives, Mann and Ross established both a strong relationship based on mutual liking, trust and respect and lasting contacts and networks with numerous other national, international and transnational socialists and labourites. They also inspired many in Britain, Australia, New Zealand and the wider world to join the labour movement in order to create a more equal, just, civilised and democratic society.

Although the subject of individual biographies and other studies, Mann and Ross have received no detailed attention in the literature, either as a specific pair of important transnational radicals, or as leaders who, individually and together, made a significant contribution to the general development of transnational radicalism in the Anglophone world and beyond during the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Mann's transnational, indeed global, contributions to socialism and labour movements have generally been neglected in favour of his contributions at the national and international levels. Ross's significant influence upon labour radicalism in New Zealand and more widely has been underplayed in favour of his more restricted contributions to the Australian movement. In turn, the important influence of both Mann and Ross upon Australia, and Mann upon New Zealand, in overall terms, has not been fully recognised.

Developing out of my longstanding interest in transnational and comparative labour history, this study aims to correct these areas of neglect. It explores the commonalities, similarities and differences of Mann and Ross as transnational radicals. In does not offer the reader a traditional, ‘from the cradle to the grave’ biography. Rather it seeks to explore Mann's and Ross's relationship, networks and connections (prosopography) at key moments in time and over time. In so doing, and in revealing, furthermore, the ways in which the transnational case of Mann and Ross casts light upon national and other similarities and differences, it also seeks to make a new and worthwhile contribution to the growing and exciting fields of transnational and comparative labour history.