The Independent Labour Party, 1914-1939: the political and cultural history of a socialist party

"Historians of political history are fascinated by the rise and fall of political parties and, for twentieth-century Britain, most obviously the rise of the Labour Party and the decline of the Liberal Party. What is often overlooked in this political development is the work of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) which was a formative influence in the growth of the political Labour movement and its leaders in the late nineteenth century and the early to mid-twentieth century. The ILP supplied the Labour Party with some of its leading political figures, such as Ramsay MacDonald, and moved the Labour Party along the road of parliamentary socialism. However, divided over the First World War and challenged by the Labour Party becoming socialist in 1918, it had to face the fact that it was no longer the major parliamentary socialist party in Britain"--

The Independent Labour Party and the Great War, 1914-1918 -- Should we stay or should we go? : the Independent Labour Party and its new role, 1918-1922 -- Clifford Allen, the 'Red Clydesiders' and socialism in our time, 1922-1928 -- Conflict with the Labour Party and the Labour government, and disaffiliation, c 1928-1932 : reasoned debate or emotional suicide? -- 'The ILP flea' : the rapid demise and factionalism of the Independent Labour Party in the early and mid-1930s -- A mass of contradictions? : internationals, communism, the Labour Party -- Voice s from the ranks, making the most of both moment and form : a distillation of the essence of the cultural and political life of ILP branches, federations, divisions, and their members, 1914-1939.