Britain’s working classes, Geoff Andrews argues, are the bearers of a radical tradition that stretches back to at least the nineteenth century, and they continue to “make modern Britain late into the twentieth century” (p.6). The nation’s working classes “have always been central to the British radical tradition’ and ‘it has no future without them” (p.2). Despite this, Andrews contends that the working classes are now “marginal to political discourse, a declining minority in the parliamentary party founded to represent their interests’ and viewed by many across the political spectrum as a ‘backward force’” (p.1). Central to Radicals, then, is an attempt to understand this shift through a broad examination of working-class cultures from the socialist movements of the late nineteenth century, through the twentieth century, and culminating with the emergence of New Labour. Moreover, Andrews also seeks to demonstrate the existence of and trace the development of a “Labour ethos” that underpinned such cultures and the broader labor movement, finding political articulation in alliance between the working class and middle-class idealists.

In tracing this development, Andrews chooses to focus on neither conventional politics nor economic or industrial relations as is traditionally the case. Instead, the focus is on cultures (especially literary), working-class institutions, self-help organizations, and non-traditional educational provision (from workers’ education to the Open University), which either reflect that ethos or helped to inculcate it. This cultural thread provides Radicals with its distinctiveness and does provide the reader with an appreciation of a broader range of working-class experiences. However, broadly speaking, Andrews does follow conventional histories of modern British politics and the labor movement, covering the cannon of key moments. Thus, we see chapters on the labor aristocracy and autodidacticism, socialism in the 1880s and 1890s, workers’ education initiatives and institutions, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, the General Strike of 1926, George Orwell, the Second World War and the “people’s war,” post-war cultural change, the Open University, “history from below,” political change in the 1970s and 1980s, and New Labour.

Undoubtedly, these moments matter to the story Andrews wants to tell, and he provides a rich narrative and detailed vignettes of those moments, many of the individuals and organizations central to them, and cultural shifts across them, which will interest the reader. However, individual chapters can read like a series of unconnected case studies, while across the book the chapters often do not feel integrated. It is thus not always clear what Andrews is arguing, how these studies link to that argument, and how his focus justifies the wider claims he makes. To be sure, some of these case studies offer real insight—especially on workers’ education (which is not surprising given this is Andrews’s personal background) and diverse working-class literary cultures, especially the personal stories that are told. Others, though, take us down a well-trodden path with interpretations and tropes that have often been challenged in more recent literature (for instance, socialism in the 1880s and 1890s, and the “people’s war” debate). Indeed, this represents a broader criticism of Radicals. The research base for this book is limited, with the select bibliography and notes suggesting only a superficial engagement with the extant historiography and much of that is not recent. This does mean there are some inaccuracies, contestable assertions, and, at times problematic, conflation of ideas, movements, and organizations. There are also some curious omissions. The First World War, for instance, is not discussed, despite its profound impact on British society, culture, the Labour Party’s subsequent electoral fortunes, and its internal structures.

In the preface to Radicals, Andrews notes that terms such as labor movement and working class have been reduced to “items of curiosity, or assumed entirely new meanings” (p.x). Yet, there is no explicit discussion of what those new meanings are. Indeed, though he deliberately pluralizes the working classes, there is a tendency to present a singular, almost romanticized version of the working class, only highlighting the much broader shifts. There is certainly very little discussion or acknowledgement of the divisions within the working classes, while differences that might be (among others) regional, occupational, religious, or political are not considered. Furthermore, the labor movement is discussed as a single entity and his argument that there was a “Labour ethos” that shaper the outlook of the Labour Party does not reflect the multiple influences on those in the party and its broad base. Finally, given the book’s title, one would have expected a much fuller engagement with radicalism as an idea and what the radical tradition represented. Again, Andrews presents that in the singular, when it would be more accurate to talk of radical traditions.

Radicals is at its best when delving into particular case studies, especially those looking at workers’ education and working-class literary cultures. Andrews’s attempt to put working-class cultures and education at the heart of the working-class story is welcome, while the central arguments and premises that underpin this book are undoubtedly interesting and it is admirable that Andrews attempts to trace them through over a century’s worth of history. However, this in some ways reflects the book’s key issues. There is much to cover, and Andrews is unable to cover moments in the analytical detail required, with reference to recent scholarship that would challenge his assumptions, and to maintain that central thread. This leads to generalization, simplification, and important omissions. For the specialist reader, Radicals treads very familiar ground; for the general reader, however, it offers an interesting overview.