{"product_id":"age-of-hope-9781472992307","title":"Age of Hope","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe clue to our future lies in our past and Toye has winkled it out with elegant and devastating precision. Chris Bryant, MP for Rhondda\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eWAS THE ATTLEE GOVERNMENT OF 1945 REALLY THE GOLDEN PERIOD OF LABOUR POWER?\u003c\/b\u003e2024 marks the centenary of the first Labour government under Ramsay MacDonald. What legacy of the past have they left behind? How far has each Labour administration influenced succeeding administrations?  Above all, was the Attlee government of 1945 really the golden period of Labour power?Professor Richard Toye explores Labour's exercise of power as a continuum, setting Attlee's administration in long-term historical context between the first Labour Government of 1924 and the current party under Keir Starmer. Within this context he shows why the Attlee administration matters so much and how successive Labour governments have fashioned it in their own image.Into this story are woven the foundation of the Labour Party in 1900, the First World War, the General Strik\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe clue to our future lies in our past and Toye has winkled it out with elegant and devastating precision.\u003c\/b\u003e Anyone who wants to find the nuggets of hope in today's Britain as we approach a watershed election needs to read this book and see what pragmatic idealism achieved between 1945 and 1951. -- Chris Bryant, MP for Rhondda\u003cbr\u003eThis is a stunningly original revision of the Attlee government and its impact on British society.\u003cb\u003e It's the best book I've read this year\u003c\/b\u003e. -- Frank Field, former MP for Birkenhead\u003cbr\u003eA hundred years since the first Labour Government, Richard Toye’s \u003cb\u003ereadable and persuasive study\u003c\/b\u003e argues that while arguments over the party’s past have often shaped its future, Labour does best when it forgets old battles and finds a way to combine hope with pragmatism. The history of the era is highly contested, but the book does \u003cb\u003ea masterly job\u003c\/b\u003e of picking through the bitterness to understand what has worked in the past and has a reasonable chance of working in the future. -- Anne Perkins, author of 'A Very British Strike' and 'Red Queen: The Authorized Biography of Barbara Castle'\u003cbr\u003eThis book \u003cb\u003eillustrates how the key players in the Attlee Government combined their radical idealism and pragmatism to seize their moment and create such a sense of purpose and hope\u003c\/b\u003e that was truly transformative and set the standard for all subsequent Labour administrations to live up to. -- John McDonnell, MP for Hayes and Harlington","brand":"Bloomsbury Publishing PLC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48867243229527,"sku":"9781472992307","price":22.5,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781472992307.jpg?v=1722282391","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/age-of-hope-9781472992307","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}