The British left certainly had differences of opinion concerning Italian fascism. Moderates argued that it had flourished in a climate of fear engendered in the middle and upper classes by revolutionaries within the labour movement. British revolutionaries asserted that, on the contrary, fascism had been so aggressive and so successful because of the timidity of the socialist leaders in responding to its attacks. Labour and the Trades Union Congress argued that it had conquered a state with weak parliamentary structures and had conquered it largely from without, maintaining their view that the best defence against fascism was to support the concept and institutions of democracy. Communists, on the other hand, pointed out that fascism had come to power with the connivance of powerful elements within Italian democracy, and of supposed servants of the ‘democratic’ state, which here, as elsewhere, was no more than a convenient cover for capitalist rule. Yet despite these differences, all parties of the left in Britain concurred that Italian fascism's overwhelmingly distinctive characteristic was its anti-working class stance: a feature which had marked it throughout all its phases.

This chapter addresses the complex turns that the debate on women's work took in the specific context of the 1790s and, more specifically still, in the non-fictional and imaginative publications of one of the most vocal and eloquent commentators on this issue, Mary Wollstonecraft. Her extensive, but by no means internally consistent, reflections upon the labour and literary marketplaces signal crucial, and in many ways decisive, developments in the narratives about work and authorship that this book examines. Most particularly, an investigation of her polemical writings, philosophical works, travel literature and novels suggests that the more labour was prized in late eighteenth-century writings on political economy, and the more centrally its language figured in the republic of letters' self-presentation at the century's close, the more vital and the more difficult it became for women writers to press the discourse of labour into the service of their gender and textual politics.

Gibraltar has a very long history. There is archaeological evidence of human settlement on the peninsula stretching back several thousand years. This book focuses on the policing of entry and the regulations that Britain's colonial authorities put in place, also analysing the origins of those who did secure settlement in Gibraltar. This exercise is particularly necessary because the ethnicity of people in other places has been translated by them into a sense of national identity, and this has carried political implications. The second major theme of the book is to consider why settlers came and stayed. Several chapters explore aspects of the economic history of Gibraltar. First, the book discusses the demographic roots of Gibraltarian identity during the period 1704–1819, before turning to Gibraltar's fortress economy between 1704 and 1815 and its government and politics. It also looks at Gibraltar's economy and living standards in the nineteenth century.

As the 1930s progressed, the left had new opportunities to observe fascism and deepen its understanding of the phenomenon. In Spain in 1936, there was another assault from the right on a European democracy. Despite the differing perspectives the left parties had of the Spanish Civil War, there was broad agreement on the nature and purpose of the fascist challenge there. In Italy, Mussolini's regime had become firmly established, the final centres of opposition were nullified and the actions of a ‘mature’ fascist state could be seen. In Germany, Hitler had moved far more quickly than his Italian counterpart to impose a dictatorship, and the nature of a functioning economy under Nazism soon became apparent. The early claims of fascist and Nazi movements as to the kind of societies they would create and the balance of class relations they would oversee could now be tested against reality.

This chapter examines William Blundell's claims that he was a loyal subject in light of his activities related to the removal of the penal laws and the admission of Catholics into every area of English social life. It suggests that Blundell's claim of being a loyal subject represented loyalty to the monarchy and not the regime, which Blundell undermined. This chapter also argues that Blundell made a significant contribution to safeguarding the prospects of English Catholicism and his activities were a direct threat to the Protestant state.

The epigraph presented at the beginning of this chapter reveals Edmund Spenser's image of Man's creation as a divine plan to colonize that ‘waste and empty place’ forfeited by the Fallen Angels, a clear metaphor for Elizabeth's policy of settling Ireland with English Protestants. This book cannot fully satisfy the rising demands for information on southern Ireland's Plantation Period, Elizabethan material culture, or the personal lives of Edmund Spenser and other Renaissance figures. It is intended, rather, to present the views on the topic to a knowledgeable audience in Ireland and Britain, while informing the wider, literary-based readership of the Manchester Spenser series.

This chapter examines the legacies of Jennings' films in relation to the history and memory of the British home front during World War II; a number of trends and specific works from the field of film and television; and ongoing questions of national identity and patriotism. Although Jennings' films may not seem directly dedicated to one's dilemmas, they can still stir and inspire with their imaginative and moral impulse, and continue to do so precisely because they continue in various ways to raise issues relevant to the present. However, within acknowledgments of the importance of Jennings' films to the history of documentary representation, certain assessments of his filmmaking have unintentionally denied legacies by arguing that his work is too idiosyncratic for emulation. This may well be the case when referring to Jennings' use of collage and ambiguity, formal characteristics that are not commonly copied or duplicated in documentary filmmaking.

This chapter analyses William Blundell's entries on devotional writing and religious histories in his commonplace books. It considers how Blundell used his reading to bolster his own religious beliefs and discusses religious beliefs based on his engagement with the Bible and other devotional works. The analysis of his commonplace books indicates that certain aspects of Catholicism caused him problems, particularly the details of saints' lives. This chapter also describes how Blundell read and rewrote Catholic and Protestant history to add credibility to the former.

This chapter highlights the twin ideological traditions that John Enoch Powell attempted to integrate into a coherent whole. These traditions were economic liberalism and traditional toryism. The chapter outlines Powell's main political principles and how these applied to the broad range of policies he addressed as an MP inside and outside of Parliament. It evaluates these ideas and discusses various criticisms made of Powell's political viewpoint. After the defeat of the Conservative Government, Powell asserted his belief that a clear choice existed in economic policy between socialism, which would continue to limit freedom as it had done under governments of both Labour and Conservative, and capitalism. Powell was to remain steadfast in his opposition to any measures he regarded as weakening the sovereignty of Westminster over Ulster and thought the Anglo-Irish Agreement signed by Margaret Thatcher a betrayal of Ulster.

This chapter investigates the physical and sexual violence to which children were subjected in twentieth-century Ireland. The Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (ISPCC), in spite of its founding mission to protect children from ‘cruelty,’ rarely dealt with explicit cases of cruelty, abuse, or assault in the course of their daily rounds. The use of corporal punishment in national schools is then discussed. Children were subject to a significant degree of sexual violence in twentieth-century Ireland. Sentencing and conviction patterns show that sexual crimes against children were not treated as serious, and no one recognized the potentially harmful long-term effects of sexual abuse on children. Irish society at all levels tolerated a degree of violence against children that was striking in its regularity and routineness.