This elegantly written and researched book traces the gradual and painful disillusionment of the Labour Left with the Attlee governments and analyses the alternative, more militant, programme which the Labour Left devised. Never an organized bloc, the author argues that they are best understood as Labour's conscience -- a militant tendency in the true sense of the words.

Labour's Conscience: The Labour Left, 1945-51

Politics & Social Sciences

Schneer, Jonathan

Politics & Government

Unwin Hyman

The Lockhart Plot: Love, Betrayal, Assassination and Counter-Revolution in Lenin's Russia

During the spring and summer of 1918, with World War I still undecided, British, French and American agents in Russia developed a breathtakingly audacious plan. Led by Robert Hamilton Bruce Lockhart, a dashing, cynical, urbane 30-year-old Scot, they conspired to overthrow Lenin's newlyestablished Bolshevik regime, and to install one that would continue the war against Germany on the Eastern Front. Lockhart's confidante and chief support, with whom he engaged in a passionate love affair, was the mysterious, alluring Moura von Benkendorff, wife of a former aide-de-camp to the Tsar.The plotters' chief opponent was "Iron Felix" Dzerzhinsky. He led the Cheka, "Sword and Shield" of the Russian Revolution and forerunner of the KGB. Dzerzhinsky loved humanity - in the abstract. He believed socialism represented humanity's best hope. To preserve and protect it he would unleashunbounded terror.Revolutionary Russia provided the setting for the ensuing contest. In the back streets of Petrograd and Moscow, in rough gypsy cabarets, in glittering nightclubs, in cells beneath the Cheka's Lubianka prison, the protagonists engaged in a deadly game of wits for the highest possible stakes - notmerely life and death, but the outcome of a world war and the nature of Russia's post-war regime.Confident of success, the conspirators set the date for an uprising, September 8, 1918, but the Cheka had penetrated their organization and pounced just beforehand. The Lockhart Plot was a turning point in world history, except it failed to turn. At a time when Russian meddling in British andAmerican politics now sounds warning bells, however, we may sense its reverberations and realize that it is still relevant.

History

Europe

Oxford University Press

This is the extraordinary story of the British plot in the

BEN TILLETT (Working Class in European History)

Business & Money

University of Illinois Press

London in 1900 was the greatest city on earth―the capital of an empire on which the sun never set. This book is the first to examine this powerful and influential city at the turn of the century and to investigate its relationship with Britain’s far-flung empire. Jonathan Schneer focuses on the diverse, contentious, contradictory personalities of London and its inhabitants, showing the many ways that the empire impinged on them. He describes how a range of citizens―from architects to zoologists, from financiers to striking dockers―helped to define and shape the imperial metropolis. He also shows how the city was influenced by people other than native-born male Anglo-Saxons. Schneer traces the attempts of some of these overlooked peoples to delineate its boundaries: four extraordinary women―two political hostesses, a journalist, and an explorer-ethnologist―as well as anti-imperialist Irish, South Asians, West Indians, and Africans living in London at this time. In a concluding chapter, Schneer examines the general election of 1900 in London, in which the ruling Conservative government successfully defended its imperialist policies. The people of London, says Schneer, made their city and continually remade and reshaped it―as they continue to do today.

London 1900: The Imperial Metropolis (Yale Nota Bene)

Yale University Press

England's great river through the ages. The Thames, England’s greatest river—for centuries an aid to trade, a stalwart of national defense, a stage for some of England’s greatest historical events, an inspiration to some of England’s best poets and artists, a challenge to engineers. Yet while there is a constancy in the history of the river, there is also change. The Thames chartsthe diverse meanings of the river over the course of millennia, from prehistoric to modern times. From the elephants on the bank of the prehistoric river to Caesar’s expeditionary force; from King Alfred’s battleships to the signing of Magna Carta; from the river’s role in both the coronation and execution of Anne Boleyn to seventeenth-century frost fairs and the first performance of Handel’s ‘Water Music’; from Turner’s view of the river as arcadia through its bombardment during the Blitz, The Thames providesan intimate portrait of the waterway at the heart of English history. Blending elegant prose with historical detail, this exceptional book superbly brings to life the river Winston Churchill once vividly described as “a golden thread in the national tapestry.”

The Thames

Americas

The Thames: England's River

ABACUS +

The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict

A revelatory history of a document that laid the foundation stone of the state of Israel, the reverberations of which continue to be felt to this day. Born in the furnace of shifting great-power alliances, the Balfour Declaration, issued in 1917, was a defining moment in world history. In paving the way for the establishment of the State of Israel, it fundamentally reshaped the Middle East and yielded repurcussions that we are still feeling, powerfully, today. Jonathan Scheer has written a sweeping, deeply researched, and provocative history of this crucial document and the politics, double-dealing, backstabbing, and geopolitical crises that led to it. The result shows us the evolution of a fraught region in a wholly original and unbiased light.

Bond Street Books

Winner of the National Jewish Book Award Issued in London in 1917, the Balfour Declaration was one of the key documents of the twentieth century. It committed Britain to supporting the establishment in Palestine of “a National Home for the Jewish people,” and its reverberations continue to be felt to this day. Now the entire fascinating story of the document is revealed in this impressive work of modern history. With new material retrieved from historical archives, Jonathan Schneer recounts in dramatic detail the public and private fight for a small strip of land in the Middle East, a battle that started when the Ottoman Empire took Germany’s side in World War I. The key players in this conflict are rendered in nuanced and detailed relief: Sharif Hussein, the Arab leader who secretly sought British support; Chaim Weizmann, the Zionist folks-mensch who charmed British high society; T. E. Lawrence, the legendary British officer who “set the desert on fire” for the Arabs; and the other generals and prime ministers, soldiers and negotiators, who shed blood and cut deals to grab or give away the precious land. A book crucial to understanding the Middle East as it is today, The Balfour Declaration is a riveting volume about the ancient faiths and timeless treacheries that continue to drive global events.

Anchor Canada

In May 1940, with France on the verge of defeat, Britain alone stood in the path of the Nazi military juggernaut. Survival seemed to hinge on the leadership of Winston Churchill, whom the King reluctantly appointed Prime Minister as Germany invaded France. Churchill's reputation as one of the great twentieth-century leaders would be forged during the coming months and years, as he worked tirelessly first to rally his country and then to defeat Hitler. But Churchill—regarded as the savior of his nation, and of the entire continent—could not have done it alone. As prize-winning historian Jonathan Schneer reveals in Ministers at War, Churchill depended on a team of powerful ministers to manage the war effort as he rallied a beleaguered nation. Selecting men from across the political spectrum—from fellow Conservative Anthony Eden to leader of the opposing socialist Labor Party Clement Attlee—Churchill assembled a War Cabinet that balanced competing interests and bolstered support for his national coalition government. The group possessed a potent blend of talent, ambition, and egotism. Led and encouraged by Churchill, the ministers largely set aside their differences, at least at first. As the war progressed, discord began to grow. It reached a peak in 1945: with victory seemingly assured, Churchill was forced by his Minsters at War to dissolve the Government and call a General Election, which, in a shocking upset, he lost to his rival Attlee. Authoritatively recasting our understanding of British high politics during World War II, Schneer shows that Churchill managed the war effort by managing his team of supremely able yet contentious cabinet members. The outcome of the war lay not only in Churchill's individual brilliance but also in his skill as an executive, and in the collective ability of men who muted their personal interests to save the world from barbarism.

Ministers at War: Winston Churchill and His War Cabinet

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Basic Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Schneer, Jonathan. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Schneer, Jonathan

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Schneer, Jonathan. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Labour's Conscience: The Labour Left, 1945-51

The Lockhart Plot: Love, Betrayal, Assassination and Counter-Revolution in Lenin's Russia

The Lockhart Plot: Love, Betrayal, Assassination and Counter-Revolution in Lenin's Russia

BEN TILLETT (Working Class in European History)

London 1900: The Imperial Metropolis (Yale Nota Bene)

The Thames

The Thames: England's River

The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict

The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Ministers at War: Winston Churchill and His War Cabinet