Overview

The Future in Our Past tells the remarkable story of Britain’s only ever General Strike on its centenary. It is an on-the-ground account of how workers brought the country to a standstill for nine extraordinary days. Callum Cant and Matthew Lee take us on a journey through a Britain living on its nerves, from the London docklands to the South Wales coalfields and the railways and warehouses of middle England. They compare the struggles of 1926 with those of workers in these same communities today. We meet a Bangladeshi courier involved in wildcat strikes on the Isle of Dogs. The great grandson of a Welsh miner facing redundancy at the blast furnaces of Port Talbot. This is social history at its most immediate and relevant. Churchill feared that labour militancy presaged a Bolshevik-style revolution. But for socialists, dreams of a brighter future would have to wait. Cant and Matthew Lee ask why this monumental standoff ended in defeat for the unions despite their huge mobilisation. They set out why the General Strike still matters and the lessons it has for us.

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9781836742616

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Reviews

This radical approach to the General Strike places the TUC's collective failure to believe centrally amongst the causes for its defeat. Today, it uncovers opportunities where others have emphasised weakness. It should be widely read -- Huw Beynon, coauthor of <i>The Shadow of the Mine</i> A superb, innovative approach that interweaves a vivid historical account of the epic General Strike with perceptive social reportage on workers' struggles in the transformed world of employment today -- Ralph Darlington, author of <i>Labour Revolt in Britain 1910–14</i>

Author Information

Callum Cant is the author of Riding for Deliveroo and coauthor of Feeding the Machine. He writes for the Guardian on strikes, the future of work and workers’ rights. He is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Essex and co-editor of Notes from Below, a journal of worker writing. Matthew Lee is a librarian and independent researcher and co-editor of Notes from Below. He is a contributing author to the upcoming book Higher Education’s Labor Upsurge.

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