Explores the efforts of two left labor leaders, Arthur Scargill of the British National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and Richard Trumka of the United Mineworkers of America (UMWA), to address the crisis of deindustrialization in 1980s. Role of leadership in determining industrial and political outcomes; Impact of the development of alternative sources of energy on British and U.S. coalfields; Background on the development of the UMWA and the NUM. (EBSCO)

Discussions of the British extreme right, both in its pre-war and post-war manifestations, have tended to ignore the question of gender. A number of writers, however, have argued that, by definition, the extreme right should be seen as a highly patriarchal force. Closer examination casts doubt on this supposition, and suggests instead that for a movement organised around ultra-nationalism and resistance to the racial 'Other', but not around anti-feminism, gender has proved to be a matter of considerable debate.

This completely revised and updated second edition provides a comprehensive introduction to British government policy in Northern Ireland. It is a detailed study and looks at policy in four related areas - constitutional, security, economic and social - offering an overview of the questions of continuity and bipartisanship in British policy. For ease of reference, the book deals with these four policy areas chronologically by administration. The text is completely revised to cover the Major administration and the Labour administration up to 2000, including recent periods of intense legislative activity, such as the Good Friday Agreement, the reform of the Ulster Defence Regiment, and the reform of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. It will prove invaluable as an undergraduate textbook for modules on Northern Ireland, and as a reference source on government policy for students of British politics at undergraduate and postgraduate level. (Manchester University Press)

The 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement (AIA) was one of the major achievements of Anglo-Irish diplomacy during the course of the Troubles. Yet its importance has been misunderstood and often ignored in subsequent histories of the development of the conflict and the peace process. This article seeks to re-evaluate the AIA. It examines the purposes of the agreement, taking issue with a number of the existing explanations. It is argued that London and Dublin had conflicting analyses of what the AIA was designed to do, which led to disappointment in both states with its impact. These differences also made it difficult for academics to accurately characterize the accord. However, the AIA played a profound and imperative role in shaping the subsequent peace process, but this arose out of consequences of the Agreement that were, despite recent claims to the contrary, unanticipated, and indeed unintended, by those who drew up the document. (Palgrave Macmillan)

The Independent Labour Party (ILP) has long enjoyed a reputation as the pre-First World War political party most sympathetic both to feminism in general, and to the suffrage movement in particular. Indeed, it is only recently that such a reputation has been placed under scrutiny. Ironically, considering the amount of attention devoted to it by Edwardian ILPers, the party's relationship with suffrage militancy is also an area that has as yet received little close attention, and it is on this relationship that the present article focuses. More specifically, this article concentrates on male ILP members, in order to shed light both on their attitudes towards women's role in society and in politics, and on their own identities as socialists and as men, providing an important insight into male ILPer's gendered politics. Suffrage militancy's role in jolting ILP men out of a purely formal advocacy of suffrage, forcing them to question the nature of their socialist beliefs and the place of women's enfranchisement in their practical programme, is explored. Further, the article considers how ideas about women's role in politics had to be re-thought as militancy developed and changed in the decade before the outbreak of the First World War. It questions how far ILP men were able to adapt their ideas of 'political womanhood' to accommodate women who not only made an uncompromising entrance into the political arena, but also undertook both illegal and violent activities. Underlying the whole discussion, finally, is the question of how far the suffrage movement in general and militancy in particular forced ILP men to re-think their own masculine identities, and to make changes to their own personal relationships with women. And perhaps more fundamentally, the article questions how far notions of socialist manliness based on chivalrousness and protectiveness towards women were modified, in the light of militants' growing determination to do without male protection and patronage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] (Ebsco)

This article considers the reasons for, and the responses to, two recent apologies in Irish Politics. These are Tony Blair's statement in 1997 concerning the Famine of the 1840s and the IRA apology of 2002. A set of criteria are developed by which to judge the validity of these apologies. It is argued that Blair's statement did not formally constitute an apology although one would be valid if British policy of the period were to be considered unjust. The case of the IRA apology is more clear cut, as unjust actions were committed and responsibility can be clearly demonstrated.

This new study reveals how British and Irish governments not only had different reasons for co-operating, but also had different prescriptions for ending the conflict in Northern Ireland. Eamonn O'Kane shows how and why the two states were subject to demands and expectations from their 'client' communities in the North had conflicting historical explanations for the problem and different domestic considerations to take into account. He argues that all of these factors must be examined in context and in doing so makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the Northern Ireland conflict and offers a new explanation for the emergence and development of the peace process. Based on extensive new interview data, this volume is an invaluable resource for students and researchers of British politics, Irish studies and conflict studies.

Keith Gildart concentrates on the period between the nationalization of the coal industry in 1947 and its privatization in 1994 and, through a detailed study of groups, individuals and communities, demonstrates the complex nature of work and politics during a period of momentous change in British coalfield history. He pays particular attention to the politics of the National Union of Mineworkers, the role of the Labour Party, and the impact of pit closures on miners and their localities. North Wales Miners combines oral history and archival sources to provide a ground-breaking account of social, political and industrial change in post-war Wales. Contents: The Golden Age of Labourism, 1945-1963; Miners, Labour and pit closures, 1964-1971; The Politics of Coal, 1972-1982; The Fragmentation of Unity, 1983-1988; The End of an era, 1989-1996. (University of Wales Press)