Hugh Gaitskell
Will be published approx. on 1. May 2015
Book
Paperback/Softback
416 pages
978-1-84358-099-7 (ISBN)
Description
Hugh Gaitskill has been called the grandfather of Tony Blair's New Labour Party: he was the first leader to attempt the removal of Clause IV, the first to push Labour in the direction of the American Democrats and the first to try to position the party for maximum electoral advantage. He was also a public school and Oxford-educated economist whose controlled public persona hid a private passion, humour and warmth that inspired intense devotion: Brian Walden once declared that he would go through fire for Gaitskell. Brian Brivati's biography attempts to answer this central paradox: why did a Whitehall technocrat become the hope and leader for a generation of radically-minded people?
Reviews / Votes
"'In this brilliant first biography Brivati describes and tries to understand the personality and the political career that provoked such extremes of feeling in his own lifetime and beyond' Tony Benn, New Statesman; 'A fine book...highly readable...would-be plotters inside New Labour would do well to rush out and buy it' Ian Aitken, Guardian; 'Brivati's analysis of the mindset of the Gaitskellites would alone make this book worth reading. It help explain why the SDP was outflanked by Margaret Thatcher in the ideological battles of the 1980's; and why Tony Blair's social democracy has much less substance than Gaitskell's' Robert Skidelsky"More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
John Blake Publishing Ltd
Dimensions
Height: 250 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-84358-099-7 (9781843580997)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Dr Brivati is a Reader in History at Kingston University and Director of the Centre for the Understanding of Society and Politics. On his appointment as Reader in 1997 he was the youngest to hold such a post in the country. He contributes regularly to the Guardian, the New Statement and the Observer. He publications include Lord Goodman and as co-editor of New Labour in Power: Precedents and Prospects.