From ‘flame’ to embers? Whatever happened to the English radical tradition c.1880-2020?

Abstract

ABSTRACT From the middle of the nineteenth-century, representatives of radical and labour agitations in Britain sough to embed themselves in an older democratic precedent. Referring back to these established narratives, Communist authors of the Popular Front period laid the foundations for the revival of an English radical tradition that proved formative for a generation of historians who saw themselves as custodians of the radical past. Outlining the radical approach to the British historical past and its emphasis on Englishness, this article considers the development of and approaches to a radical past and the traditions and personalities that were integrated into a usable radical lineage.