Ramsay MacDonald: A Biography by David Marquand
This is the biography of Britain's first Labour Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald. It attempts to disentangle the real MacDonald from the MacDonald of legend, painting a sympathetic portrait of him. The illegitimate son of a Scottish servant girl, MacDonald became a Socialist at the age of 19 and spent nearly half a century preaching his own brand of parliamentary socialism. He did a great deal to shape the thinking of the early Labour Party and to transform it from a weak and deferential trade union pressure group into the main left-wing party in the state. However, after the crisis of 1931, when MacDonald broke with the Labour Party in an agony of conflicting loyalties, and formed a National Government with the Conservatives and Liberals, adulation turned to abuse.
David Marquand is one of the leading left of centre political philosophers in the UK. He is a former Labour Member of Parliament and Chief Advisor in the Secretariat General of the European Commission, and from 1996 to 2002 was Principal of Mansfield College, Oxford. His many books include Ramsay MacDonald, The Unprincipled Society: New Demands and Old Politics, The Progressive Dilemma: From Lloyd George to Blair, Decline of the Public: The Hollowing-out of Citizenship, Britain Since 1918: The Strange Career of British Democracy and The End of the West: The Once and Future Europe. He is a Fellow of both the British Academy and the Learned Society of Wales. In 2001 he received the Sir Isaiah Berlin Prize for a lifetime contribution to Political Studies.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781860661136 |
| ISBN 10 | 1860661130 |
| Title | Ramsay MacDonald: A Biography |
| Author | David Marquand |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | John Blake Publishing Ltd |
| Year published | 1997-09-29 |
| Number of pages | 928 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |