Matthew Johnson. Militarism and the British Left, 1902–1914.

Abstract

Following in the path of historians such as George Dangerfield, Trevor Wilson, and Peter Clarke, Matthew Johnson's book is the latest to ask questions about why the Liberal Party collapsed so momentously in the first part of the twentieth century. Specifically, Johnson seeks to assess whether and how Liberals, socialists, and the Left more broadly were able to accommodate and develop notions of militarism within their political traditions. In doing so, he tries to revise accepted wisdom that militarism should be associated with the Right and as anathema to the Liberal Party of the early twentieth century and to progressivism. The book, therefore, does for militarism and the Left what Paul Ward has done for patriotism and the Left, and what Frank McDonough has done for anti-German sentiment and the Right during similar time periods. In six closely argued and thematic chapters, Johnson persuasively traces the development of militaristic ideas among the British Left. His conception of militarism is more inclusive than that of the famous sociologist Stanislav Andreski. Here, “various manifestations” of militarism are examined (p. 16), with special regard to how they permeated formal politics and political culture. We hear in chapter 1 of the ambiguous views of the Left toward military leaders such as Oliver Cromwell and General Gordon.