Research Catalog

Title

The New statesman : portrait of a political weekly, 1913-1931 / Adrian Smith.

Author

Smith, Adrian, 1952-

Publication

London ; Portland, Or. : Frank Cass, 1996.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xvi, 340 pages, 12 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, portraits; 24 cm

Summary

• This is the first detailed history of how a fledgeling Fabian weekly, founded in 1913 by Sidney and Beatrice Webb with financial support from George Bernard Shaw, came to play a key role in the growth of the modern Labour Party. Placing the early New Statesman in the context of its eight turbulent decades as the flagship of the left, the book compares the paper's early journalists with those of later generations.
• The first editor, Clifford Sharp, masterminded a political weekly that by 1920, despite its modest circulation, enjoyed remarkable influence within Whitehall and at Westminster. Reflecting the progressive intelligentsia's disenchantment with the Liberal leadership, especially after the party split in December 1916, the New Statesman had by the end of the First World War become a forum for forward-thinkers at the centre of Labour's policy-making machine.
• Though a talented editor, Sharp was a deeply flawed character, whose post-war misjudgement, principally his misplaced loyalty to Asquith, and drunken behaviour led to repeated clashes with the board. By 1925, the front half of the paper had lost direction, while the arts pages had lost their early vitality. With support for Labour no longer guaranteed, a consortium headed by Ramsay MacDonald sought unsuccessfully to take control.
• For the rest of the decade deputy editors Mostyn Lloyd and G.D.H. Cole struggled to combine academic careers with re-establishing the discredited New Statesman as the voice of the left. Success was to come only under the leadership and inspiration of a new editor, Kingsley Martin, and a new chairman, John Maynard Keynes, following the paper's symbolic take-over in 1930 of the Liberal weekly, the Nation.
• By drawing upon interviews with surviving participants and a wide range of public and personal papers, the author analyses the development and significance of Britain's best-known and most resilient magazine of the left.

Subjects

• Geschichte 1913-1931
• 1900-1999
• New Statesman
• New statesman
• The new statesman
• Tijdschriften
• New Statesman (tijdschrift)
• British periodicals > 20th century

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

1. Introduction -- 2. Perplexed Fabians: Sidney and Beatrice Webb by 1912 -- 3. Pre-war paper-making: Founding a new radical weekly -- 4. The New Statesman in Liberal England -- 5. Common sense about the war: The New Statesman, 1914-18 -- 6. Editor or spy? Clifford Sharp and Bolshevik Russia -- 7. Labour or Liberal? The New Statesman and the struggle for power, 1918-24 -- 8. 'Literature is news that STAYS news' (Ezra Pound): The New Statesman as a literary review -- 9. The years of crisis: The New Statesman in the late 1920s -- 10. The rise and fall of the Labour government, and the fall and rise of the New Statesman and Nation, 1930-31 -- 11. Conclusion: Eighty years of new statesmanship.

ISBN

• 0714646458
• 9780714646459
• 0714641693
• 9780714641690

LCCN

95021578

OCLC

• ocm32626029
• 32626029
• SCSB-2079383

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library