English Farmworkers and Local Patriotism, 1900-1930 (Studies in Labour History)

The author of this book attempts to reconcile academic research into aspects of labour history with the inherited knowledge of the patriotism and latent conservatism of many working class families. It addresses an issue which continues to puzzle researchers into working class life in the twentieth century: the contradiction of farmworkers who were active trade unionists volunteering to fight in World War I for a cause about which they knew little. The book also contends that the extraordinary growth of rural radicalism at the end of that war was diffused by popular conservatism. This "local patriotism" was itself a product of wartime militarism, and linked old parochialism with a new sense of loyalty to country and to the nation, specifically England.