An in-depth history of the fight for women’s rights in Scotland’s largest city. On a dark January night in 1914, Glasgow’s iconic Kibble Palace at the Botanic Gardens became the target of a bomb attack that shattered 27 large panes of glass. The police concluded it was the work of militant suffragettes after discovering footprints of ladies’ shoes…and an empty champagne bottle and cake. The attack was just one of many incidents as the women of Glasgow battled for the right to vote: marching on the streets, daring escapes from under the nose of police officers, and a meeting which ended in a riot. One hundred years from when some women were finally able to go to the ballot box for the first time, this book examines the inspirational women of Glasgow and their quest for equal rights and improvements in all areas of society. Covering the women who challenged miserable conditions facing workers; who fought for a formal university education and helped improve the health of the nation; who took part in the suffrage movement in Glasgow, from the first meetings to militant action and force feeding; who took on work, from driving trams to staffing hospitals on the frontline, when war broke out; and who went from gaining the right to vote to taking a seat in Parliament for the first time, Struggle and Suffrage in Glasgow uncovers stories of the pioneering women of the city who left a legacy for generations to come.

Marking the centenary of female suffrage, this definitive history charts women's fight for the vote through the lives of those who took part, in a timely celebration of an extraordinary struggle An Observer Pick of 2018 A Telegraph Book of 2018 A New Statesman Book of 2018 Between the death of Queen Victoria and the outbreak of the First World War, while the patriarchs of the Liberal and Tory parties vied for supremacy in parliament, the campaign for women's suffrage was fought with great flair and imagination in the public arena. Led by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia, the suffragettes and their actions would come to define protest movements for generations to come. From their marches on Parliament and 10 Downing Street, to the selling of their paper, Votes for Women, through to the more militant activities of the Women's Social and Political Union, whose slogan 'Deeds Not Words!' resided over bombed pillar-boxes, acts of arson and the slashing of great works of art, the women who participated in the movement endured police brutality, assault, imprisonment and force-feeding, all in the relentless pursuit of one goal: the right to vote. A hundred years on, Diane Atkinson celebrates the lives of the women who answered the call to 'Rise Up'; a richly diverse group that spanned the divides of class and country, women of all ages who were determined to fight for what had been so long denied. Actresses to mill-workers, teachers to doctors, seamstresses to scientists, clerks, boot-makers and sweated workers, Irish, Welsh, Scottish and English; a wealth of women's lives are brought together for the first time, in this meticulously researched, vividly rendered and truly defining biography of a movement.

"In its analysis of gender and class relations and their political forms, in giving voice to the many who have left only a fleeting trace in the historical record, Clark's study is a pioneering classic. . . . It also has a salience for many of our present social and political dilemmas."—Leonore Davidoff, Editor, Gender and History "Deeply researched, scholarly, serious, important. This is a big book that develops a significant new line of inquiry on a classic story in modern history—the making of the English working class. Clark shows in great and persuasive detail how we might read this tale through the lens of gender."—Thomas Laqueur, author of Making Sex

A People's History of Scotland looks beyond the kings and queens, the battles and bloody defeats of the past. It captures the history that matters today, stories of freedom fighters, suffragettes, the workers of Red Clydeside, and the hardship and protest of the treacherous Thatcher era. With riveting storytelling, Chris Bambery recounts the struggles for nationhood. He charts the lives of Scots who changed the world, as well as those who fought for the cause of ordinary people at home, from the poets Robbie Burns and Hugh MacDiarmid to campaigners such as John Maclean and Helen Crawfurd. This is a passionate cry for more than just independence but also for a nation based on social justice. Fully updated to include the rise of the SNP post 2014.