Jodi Burkett's book on middle-class radicals in the 1960s comes from an emerging interest in the individuals, organizations, and movements that navigated the shifting social and cultural environments engendered by the end of the British Empire. Burkett's investigation of these radicals' visions of post-imperial Britain fits nicely with recent works by Jordanna Bailkin and Bill Schwarz, which are beginning to constitute a well-rounded body of literature on the changes to Britons and British society as the empire waned. As Burkett's introduction neatly summarizes, previous academic investigations have largely focused on changes to culture and everyday life in postwar Britain—think of the pioneering work of Stuart Ward and Wendy Webster—and on conflicts over immigration laws and immigrant citizenship. Burkett smartly takes her research in a new direction: by studying middle-class radicals in a variety of different organizations, she attempts to fill a void left by attention to right-wing Powellites, working-class conservatism, and the realm of high politics. Her analysis examines the varied articulations of Britishness exhibited publicly by these extra-parliamentary groups and how race and empire continued to be prevalent in discussions of British identity in the long 1960s.

Burkett raided the archives of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), the Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM), and the National Union of Students (NUS) to build her case, and she employs the Northern Irish Civil Rights movement as a foil to destabilize assumptions about the centrality of English contributions to Britishness. Her analysis of these organizations makes for a compelling read, even if many of her arguments reiterate conclusions revealed in previous academic work. On the whole, Burkett's book continues to chip away at the belief that because many Britons in this period knew little about the empire, it had little or no impact on them. Instead, she argues: “While not always discussed explicitly, the end of the British Empire necessitated fundamental changes in attitude and worldview among all Britons, altering the way that Britain and ‘Britishness’ were conceived” (16). Burkett's analysis of these organizations supports this axiom, furthering the work of imperial and post-imperial historians who have long known this to be the case.

The book is divided into three parts. In the first, Burkett discusses how these organizations perceived that the loss of empire would not lead to a diminished global role for Britain. Led by the CND, radicals envisioned Britain asserting its moral authority instead of its military might and attempted to shift the burden of the nation's leadership to its people instead of its government. These organizational discourses linked a new post-imperial moral position with the mythology of Britain's opposition to slavery and defined it against the aggressiveness of nuclear superpowers. In an effort to make rhetoric into reality, these groups criticized Britain's so-called special relationship with the United States. They alternatively advocated that Britain's autonomous moral leadership could be pivotal to the success of two different international bodies: the United Nations and the Commonwealth. In her analysis of their view of the latter, Burkett trenchantly delineates how these organizations' adoption of the Commonwealth certainly critiqued formal imperialism but also relied on the strength of Britain's colonial associations to build its vision of post-imperial Britishness. The moral leadership they imagined required the international credibility of the UN and the Commonwealth to be established, even if they maintained a fervent disgust for neo-imperialism and apartheid regimes in South Africa and Rhodesia, which the UN overlooked.

In the second part, Burkett delves into the composition of each association in an attempt to assess participants' backgrounds, and the author analyzes how they imagined British society might be changed. Because the first part convincingly outlined the tensions within their post-imperial ideologies, the subsequent discussion of the politics of the organizations seems slightly out of place. It is only in the middle of the book that the reader becomes aware of who peopled their demonstrations and paid their membership fees and of the conflicts between the rank and file and the leadership. As it turns out, these organizations attracted a largely moralistic, conservative bunch that had ties to the Church and held deprecating views of ordinary Britons. Chapter 7 also reveals that these organizations suffered from internal divisions, especially over how wide to cast their radical agenda. These welcome additions to our understanding of the organizations certainly challenges standard ideas about the Left in the 1960s and helps to explain their visions of British greatness, but they come late in the analysis, largely separate from the other threads of argumentation, namely, the discussions of post-imperialism and race that bookend this group of chapters.

The final two chapters address these organizations' engagement with prevalent debates on race and immigration. In considering the apartheid regimes of South Africa and Rhodesia, the AAM outpaced its contemporaries, although the CND and the NUS also raised awareness and attempted to build public pressure within Britain. Burkett notes, though, that these protests occurred later in the decade, at a moment when these organizations had slipped out of step with majority attitudes. Endlessly optimistic about their own influence, these radicals expressed concern that Britons cared little about international affairs. They were more reluctant, however, to accept the rise of racism and discrimination in domestic Britain. Even the AAM only slowly recognized immigration laws and the rise of Powellism as problems closer to home. Unlike the rugged NUS, both were worried that discussing racism in Britain would distract them from their chief issues.

In sum, the book is an excellent exploration of these organizations, revealing their hopes, failures, and visions of post-imperial Britain. In addition to the glitches in organization mentioned above, only a few other errors draw attention away from an otherwise tidy investigation. This reviewer's main complaint is that the reader is often left wondering about the social and political impact of these organizations. Beyond being relevant to debates about radicalism and the Left, how much impact did these organizations have on issues both central and peripheral to their charges? Perhaps analyzing how others viewed them—namely, the Home Office, other governmental agencies, or the press—might better determine the longevity and reception of these articulations of post-imperial Britain. Nonetheless, the volume is a persuasive addition to studies of the multiple ways in which Britons reimagined nation and global influence in the wake of imperial decline.