Stuart Hall's writings on the political impact of Margaret Thatcher have established him as the most prescient and insightful analyst of contemporary Conservatism Collected here for the first time with a new introduction, these essays show how Thatcher has exploited discontent with Labour's record in office and with aspects of the welfare state to devise a potent authoritarian, populist ideology. Hall's critical approach is elaborated here in essays on the formation of the SDP, inner city riots, the Falklands War and the signficance of Antonio Gramsci. He suggests that Thatcherism is skillfully employing the restless and individualistic dynamic of consumer capitalism to promote a swingeing programme of 'regressive modernization'. The Hard Road to Renewal is as concerned with elaborating a new politics for the Left as it is with the project of the Right. Hall insists that the Left can no longer trade on inherited politics and tradition. Socialists today must be as radical as modernity itself. Valuable pointers to a new politics are identified in the experience of feminism, the campaigns of the GLC and the world-wide response to Band Aid.

Analyzes political, economic, and social developments since the defeat of ZANU-PF in the 2008 parliamentary election, the formation of the GNU, and the end of one-party rule in Zimbabwe.

James Procter's introduction places Hall's work within its historical, cultural and theoretical contexts, providing a clear guide to his key ideas and influences, as well as to his critics and his intellectual legacy, covering topics such as: popular culture and youth subcultures; the CCCS and cultural studies; media and communication; racism and resistance; postmodernism and the post-colonial; Thatcherism; and identity, ethnicity, diaspora."

Markets and Ideology in the City of London is the first fieldwork-based sociological study of how participants in City of London financial markets view the markets in which they work and the market mechanism in general. But it is more than a narrow study of financial market participants because it is also an empirical investigation into how ideologies function and it develops a critique of pro-market ideologies such as 'Thatcherism'. Finally, it is one of a small number of sociological studies into the privileged world of high earners and the wealthy - sociologists too frequently study the powerless and the 'deviant' or 'marginal' groups.

Explores the cultural and political significance of the election of President TrumpDonald J. Trump's presidency has delivered a seismic shock to the American political system, its public sphere, and to our political culture worldwide. Written by leading scholars across a range of disciplines, as well as professionals in the field of political journalism, this collection of essays offers a deeper understanding of Trump and the impact that his rise to power has had both domestically and worldwide.The first section provides varied perspectives on the realignments of political culture in the United States that signify a paradigm shift, a radical disruption of fundamental beliefs and values about the political process and national identity. The second section of the book focuses on US foreign policy and diplomacy, taking stock of how the Trump presidency has disturbed the international system and US primacy within it. The third section of the book addresses the dynamics and consequences of what has come to be called "e;post-truth"e; politics, where conviction surpasses facts and the norms of political communication have been profoundly disrupted. Liam Kennedy is Professor of American Studies and Director of the Clinton Institute for American Studies at University College Dublin.

The terrorist attacks of 9/11 and Bush’s belligerent response fractured the American left—partly by putting pressure on little-noticed fissures that had appeared a decade earlier. In a masterful survey of the post-9/11 landscape, renowned scholar Michael Bérubé revisits and reinterprets the major intellectual debates and key players of the last two decades, covering the terrain of left debates in the United States over foreign policy from the Balkans to 9/11 to Iraq, and over domestic policy from the culture wars of the 1990s to the question of what (if anything) is the matter with Kansas. The Left at War brings the history of cultural studies to bear on the present crisis—a history now trivialized to the point at which few left intellectuals have any sense that merely "cultural" studies could have something substantial to offer to the world of international relations, debates over sovereignty and humanitarian intervention, matters of war and peace. The surprising results of Bérubé’s arguments reveal an American left that is overly fond of a form of "countercultural" politics in which popular success is understood as a sign of political failure and political marginality is understood as a sign of moral virtue. The Left at War insists that, in contrast to American countercultural traditions, the geopolitical history of cultural studies has much to teach us about internationalism—for "in order to think globally, we need to think culturally, and in order to understand cultural conflict, we need to think globally." At a time when America finds itself at a critical crossroads, The Left at War is an indispensable guide to the divisions that have created a left at war with itself.

From her perspective as both participant and observer, Barbara Epstein examines the nonviolent direct action movement which, inspired by the civil rights movement, flourished in the United States from the mid-seventies to the mid-eighties. Disenchanted with the politics of both the mainstream and the organized left, and deeply committed to forging communities based on shared values, activists in this movement developed a fresh, philosophy and style of politics that shaped the thinking of a new generation of activists. Driven by a vision of an ecologically balanced, nonviolent, egalitarian society, they engaged in political action through affinity groups, made decisions by consensus, and practiced mass civil disobedience. The nonviolent direct action movement galvanized originally in opposition to nuclear power, with the Clamshell Alliance in New England and then the Abalone Alliance in California leading the way. Its influence soon spread to other activist movements—for peace, non-intervention, ecological preservation, feminism, and gay and lesbian rights. Epstein joined the San Francisco Bay Area's Livermore Action Group to protest the arms race and found herself in jail along with a thousand other activists for blocking the road in front of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. She argues that to gain a real understanding of the direct action movement it is necessary to view it from the inside. For with its aim to base society as a whole on principles of egalitarianism and nonviolence, the movement sought to turn political protest into cultural revolution.