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This book examines the impact that nostalgia has had on the Labour Party’s political development since 1951. In contrast to existing studies that have emphasised the role played by modernity, it argues that nostalgia has defined Labour’s identity and determined the party’s trajectory over time. It outlines how Labour, at both an elite and a grassroots level, has been and remains heavily influenced by a nostalgic commitment to an era of heroic male industrial working-class struggle. This commitment has hindered policy discussion, determined the form that the modernisation process has taken and shaped internal conflict and cohesion. More broadly, Labour’s emotional attachment to the past has made it difficult for the party to adjust to the socioeconomic changes that have taken place in Britain. In short, nostalgia has frequently left the party out of touch with the modern world. In this way, this book offers an assessment of Labour’s failures to adapt to the changing nature and demands of post-war Britain.
Restoring imperial ‘face’ The initial defeat of Britain by an Asian power in the Second World War marked a shift in China’s attitudes towards British power, compounded by their own elevation in the post-war international system to one of the Big Five. According to Steve Tsang, ‘the Chinese no longer tolerated a slag
1 Post-war childhood and adolescence Young sixties activists grew up in a historically distinct landscape. Allowing for the social and psychological dislocations of war, postwar Britain remained a stable and conservative place to be. Simon J. Charlesworth explained the importance of understanding place as a ‘natural starting point for understanding being’.1 Autobiographies of fifties middle- and working-class childhood have commonly identified the psychological security deriving from the stable social and economic conditions of the post-war boom.2 These are the
At the end of the Second World War, some 12 million German refugees and expellees fled or were expelled from their homelands in Eastern and Central Europe into what remained of the former Reich. The task of integrating these dispossessed refugees and expellees in post-war Germany was one of the most daunting challenges facing the Allied occupying authorities after 1945. The early post-war years witnessed the publication of many works on the refugee problem in the German Federal Republic (FRG). This book explores the origins of the refugee problem and shows that the flight and expulsion of the refugees and expellees from their homelands from 1944 onwards was a direct consequence of National Socialist policies. It outlines the appalling conditions under which the expulsions were carried out. The book then examines the immensity of the refugee problem in the Western Occupation Zones in economic and social terms. An analysis of the relations between the refugee and native populations in the Western Occupation Zones of Germany in the period 1945-1950 follows. The book also focuses on the attitude of the political parties towards the refugees and expellees in the early post-war years and analyses the newcomers' voting behaviour up to 1950. It argues that while economic and political integration had been largely accomplished by the late 1960s, social integration turned out to be a more protracted process. Finally, the book examines political radicalisation: despite disturbances in refugee camps in 1948-1949 and the emergence of expellee trek associations in 1951-1952.
3 The post-war regime of aviation expansion During the next few years, the UK has an opportunity, which may not recur, of developing aircraft manufacture as one of our main export industries. On whether we grasp this opportunity and so establish firmly an industry of the utmost strategic and economic importance, our future as a great nation may depend. (Duncan Sandys, UK Minister of Supply, 1952, cited in Lyth, 2003: 90) Almost every airport policy decision in the last 40 years has been controversial. Wherever there is an airport, or the potential for an
90 4 Exhumations in post-war rabbinical responsas David Deutsch The purpose of this chapter is to offer an insight into post-war Jewish responsa (decisions and rulings made by scholars of Jewish religious law) addressing the issue of exhumation and reburial of human remains stemming from the Holocaust, following research into thirty responsas submitted by ordained and practising Orthodox rabbis.1 The first part of the chapter will provide a brief and general presentation of the jargon found in responsa literature, methodology and reasoning, as well as the
widely accepted and entrenched, shaping a particular self-identity and picture of ‘Sweden’. This builds on the social origins of Swedish neutrality outlined in the previous chapter, and anchors Sweden’s post-war active neutrality policy and internationalism in a domestic context. The second part of this chapter investigates how Social Democratic norms were played out through Sweden’s neutrality policy
16 Mussolini and post-war Italian television Vanessa Roghi The Duce, the man of providence, the blacksmith’s son, the interventionist, the great journalist, the unquestioned genius, the battler against social injustice, the warrior for the national cause, the passionate lover, the country boy made good, the good family man, the autodidact, the new Caesar, the modern Cola di Rienzo, the Italian Bonaparte, the man betrayed and abandoned, the tireless worker, the economically just politician, the great statesman, the self-made romantic proletarian.1 Under the
inflexibility. Older members of the KRNVR also held antiquated attitudes that undermined the post-war development agenda, such as Lieutenant-Commander Barham. He was criticised as having ‘failed in his duty as Divisional Officer in looking after the welfare of the ratings under his command’, because ‘he holds old fashioned views about the treatment of
2 A post-war history of German security culture ‘Never again!’: reactions to the defeat of 1945 Theories of political culture point out how culture originates in events of existential significance for the national community. In Germany’s case, the defeat of 1945 represented hour zero. It shook Germany to the core morally and physically and forced the Germans into a new conception of themselves. More than 6 million Germans, half of them civilians, perished in the Second World War. All military personnel were imprisoned and many were transported to the Soviet Union