Matthew Hendley's book investigates the activities of the National Service League, the League of the Empire (LE), and the Victoria League between 1914 and 1932, and its findings support the thesis first postulated by John MacKenzie in Propaganda and Empire: The Manipulation of British Public Opinion, 1880–1960 (Manchester, 1984). MacKenzie argued that the Great War did not kill popular imperialism; it transformed it, making it less aggressive and xenophobic, that is, according to Hendley's characterization, a “kinder and gentler” version of its former self (115). Hendley also builds on more recent work, like that of Helen McCarthy (“Service Clubs, Citizenship and Equality: Gender Relations and Middle-Class Associations in Britain between the Wars,” Historical Research 81, no. 213 [August 2008]: 531–52), which reveals the postwar evolution in associational bodies of a discourse less partisan and less sectarian than the one that had prevailed before the war, in part to accommodate and encourage the participation of newly enfranchised women.

Hendley argues that the popular imperialist organizations that survived into the postwar era and beyond did so because they embraced a nonpartisan and domestically oriented agenda. The National Service League (NSL) was the only one of the three Hendley examines that proved incapable of making this adjustment. The NSL was dominated by a male membership that was committed to making national service compulsory in order to defend militarily both the metropole and its imperial periphery. It was also popularly perceived as being closely affiliated with the Conservative-Unionist Party. The League of the Empire, on the other hand, had a softer agenda even before the war and the extension of the franchise to women. A woman founded the LE and, although men dominated its executive board, its dedication to promoting imperial education led to the fostering of sentimental ties between the metropole and the dominions, especially. In particular, its postwar teacher exchange program touched the lives and transformed the opinions of the female elementary school teachers who participated in it.

The Victoria League (VL) devoted itself primarily to using hospitality to promote bonding between the metropole and the periphery. It reached out to welcome imperial visitors to Britain (after the war, including East Asians), and its overseas branches greeted British immigrants upon their arrival on distant shores. It conceptualized the empire as family and built its hospitality efforts around that. The VL attracted a number of aristocratic women as members, but it was determined to be politically nonpartisan. Before the war it persuaded several men from the Workers' Educational Association to become active in it, and after the war it courted the wives of Labour Party leaders. But no better illustration of its determined nonpartisanship exists than its refusal to endorse Empire Shopping. As Hendley observes, one would think that Empire Shopping would be a logical cause to support for an imperial organization whose membership was primarily female. However, since Empire Shopping was linked to the Conservative Party in the public mind, the VL refused to back it out of fear of appearing partisan.

Hendley's book is the product of a remarkable research effort into archival sources. The VL is the only one of the three organizations whose records are comprehensive to any extent. The LE's were damaged during the Blitz, and those of the NSL are scattered. Hendley also made use of the personal papers of each organization's members of note, such as those of Lords Roberts and Curzon for the NSL. The LE and the VL had more obscure historical figures associated with them; consequently, Hendley had to devote considerable time and energy to tracking down their materials. He is to be commended for his research efforts.

I have only two minor criticisms to make of Organized Patriotism and the Crucible of War. First, Hendley employs the rather old-fashioned use of feminine pronouns in reference to countries, and second, he elaborates extensive content summaries of the various publications issued by each of the organizations prior to analyzing their intended message. However, as Hendley notes, none of these three organizations have been extensively studied, in part because they have been incorrectly dismissed as historically insignificant by historians like Bernard Porter and in part because of the scattered nature of the surviving sources. So providing that sort of detail perhaps serves a useful purpose, that being to familiarize the reader with the ethos of popular imperialism and how it changed over time. In fact, it is this familiarization that makes Hendley's book a real contribution to scholarship. In his introduction, Hendley asserts that he wants to show how “popular patriotism and organized imperialism” continued beyond the First World War to influence “domestic politics, the educational system, and imperial migration” (6). His book certainly accomplishes this.