John S Partington | University of Reading (original) (raw)

Books by John S Partington

During a twelve month programme of events throughout 2018, the Reading labour movement marked the... more During a twelve month programme of events throughout 2018, the Reading labour movement marked the centenary of the creation of the Reading Labour Party (christened the 'Reading Trades Union Council & Labour Party' at its formation) one hundred years earlier. Now known as Reading & District Labour Party (RDLP) and working alongside the Reading Trades Union Council (RTUC) to defend and advance the rights of Reading residents, workers and visitors, the role of the party has grown in leaps and bounds over the century since its birth. Today it is the ruling party on Reading Borough Council and it holds one (Reading East) of the town's two parliamentary seats.

The centenary year did not simply celebrate the history of RDLP; it also demonstrated the party's contemporary power and organisation across the town: in the council chamber, through its Member of Parliament (Matt Rodda MP), in partnership with its affiliated trade unions and through grassroots organisation. Also apparent was the importance of the historical link between RDLP and the RTUC as political and industrial wings of the local labour movement.

Determined to capture the energy of the celebrations, campaigns and achievements created by a century of Reading Labour, the RTUC decided to distill the history into a commemorative book. The result is Reading Labour 100!

At 119 pages, Reading Labour 100 presents the historical ingredients which went into the formation of RDLP, from the co-operative movement to agricultural trade unionism, from socialist societies to industrial trade unionism - and not forgetting the anti-fascist fighters for freedom who went to Spain in 1937, some never to return. The volume also identifies key moments in RDLP's centenary year, such as supporting striking university lecturers, campaigning to retain universal free bus travel for disabled residents and protesting inflation-busting rail fare increases. Labour celebrations and political education are not ignored either - with May Day and Women's Day marches, guest speakers and social events presented within the book's pages. The volume is rounded off with an anecdotal Afterword by a stalwart of the RTUC and RDLP, Keith Jerrome.

Despite the preponderance of Conservative Governments over the century of its existence - and Reading's red oasis among England's southeast sea of Tory blue - RDLP stands strong and proud and ready for a further century of struggle and commitment to defending and extending the rights of its residents, workers and visitors!

The book costs £10 (UK) and £15 (international orders) and can be ordered via PayPal to John Partington at J_S_Partington@hotmail.co.uk. For alternative payment methods, email John to make arrangements. There will be a negotiated discount for bulk orders. All profits from the sale of the book will be divided between the RTUC and RDLP

Socialist History, 2020

Clara Zetkin (1857-1933) founded the Socialist Women's International and was a regular Social Dem... more Clara Zetkin (1857-1933) founded the Socialist Women's International and was a regular Social Democratic Party (SPD) delegate to the congresses of the Second International. In order to spread the messages of women's empowerment and socialism, she formed a correspondence network throughout Europe and beyond, and in Britain, for the first half of her career, 'Justice', the weekly journal of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), was her primary outlet. As relationships developed and influencers in Britain changed Zetkin's media presence evolved-but her reputation in Britain was built on her articles and coverage in the pages of 'Justice'. This essay tells the story of that relationship.

1917: The Russian Revolution, Reactions and Impact, 2017

This is the paperback version of 2005 hardback published by Thoemmes Continuum. H.G. Wells was... more This is the paperback version of 2005 hardback published by Thoemmes Continuum.

H.G. Wells was described by one of his European critics as a 'seismograph of his age'. He is one of the founding fathers of modern science fiction, and as a novelist, essayist, educationalist and political propagandist his influence has been felt in every European country. This collection of essays by scholarly experts shows the varied and dramatic nature of Wells's reception, including translations, critical appraisals, novels and films on Wellsian themes, and responses to his own well-publicized visits to Russia and elsewhere. The authors chart the intense ideological debate that his writings occasioned, particularly in the inter-war years, and the censorship of his books in Nazi Germany and Francoist Spain. This book offers pioneering insights into Wells's contribution to 20th century European literature and to modern political ideas, including the idea of European union.

Table Of Contents
Acknowledgements
List of Contributors
Abbreviations
Patrick Parrinder and Paul Barnaby, 'Timeline: European Reception of H. G. Wells'
Patrick Parrinder, 'Introduction'
Joseph Altairac, 'H. G. Wells's Critical Reception in France'
Annie Escuret, 'Henry-D. Davray and the Mercure de France'
Maria Kozyreva and Vera Shamina, 'Russia Revisited'
Adelaida Lyubimova and Boris Proskurnin, 'H. G. Wells in Russian Literary Criticism, 1890s-1940s'
Roger Cockrell, 'Future Perfect: H. G. Wells and Bolshevik Russia, 1917-32'
Elmar Schenkel, 'White Elephants and Black Machines: H. G. Wells and German Culture, 1920-45'
Richard Nate, 'Ignorance, Opportunism, Propaganda and Dissent: The Reception of H. G. Wells in Nazi Germany'
Andrzej Juszczyk, 'H. G. Wells's Polish Reception'
Juliusz K. Palczewski, 'On Translations of H. G. Wells's Work into Polish'
Bohuslav Mánek, 'A Welcome Guest: the Czech Reception of H. G. Wells'
Gabriella Vöő, 'Critics and Defenders of H. G. Wells in Interwar Hungary'
Katalin Csala, 'The Puzzling Connection between H. G. Wells and Frigyes Karinthy'
Maria Teresa Chialant, 'H. G. Wells, Italian Futurism and Marinetti's Gli Indomabili'
Teresa Iribarren i Donadeu, 'An Approximation of H. G. Wells's Impact on Catalonia'
Alberto Lázaro, 'H. G. Wells and the Discourse of Censorship in Franco's Spain'
José Manuel Mota, 'News from Nowhere: Portuguese Dialogues with H. G. Wells'
Lucian M. Ashworth, 'Clashing Utopias: H. G. Wells and Catholic Ireland'
George Slusser and Danièle Chatelain, 'A Tale of Two Science Fictions: H. G. Wells in France and the Soviet Union'
Nicoletta Vallorani, '"The Invisible Wells" in European Cinema and Television'
John S. Partington, 'H. G. Wells and the International Paneuropean Union'
Bibliography
Index

Clara Zetkin was once a renowned figure in the international working class movement; as a Marxist... more Clara Zetkin was once a renowned figure in the international working class movement; as a Marxist activist and theoretician she became an inspiration for men and women in their struggle against the dual enemies of imperialist war and capitalist oppression. She was dedicated to the Socialist cause and active throughout her adult life in the German Social Democratic Party, the Spartacist League and the German Communist Party. Zetkin was the comrade and friend of Rosa Luxemburg, Alexandra Kollontai and Lenin, but her memory has been eclipsed in recent decades. The founder of the Socialist Women's International but a fierce critic of what she saw as the shortcomings of bourgeois feminism, Zetkin interviewed Lenin on ‘The Woman Question’ and it was Zetkin who over a hundred years ago initiated the first ever International Women’s Day that continues to be celebrated to this day. So why is she now so little known in the English-speaking world? What is her abiding legacy and is there anything that can be learned from her career and example eighty years after her death? The contributors to this special SHS Occasional Publication devoted to Clara Zetkin seek to provide answers to these and other questions for a modern audience.

Papers by John S Partington

The Wellsian: The Journal of the H.G. Wells Society, 2000

The Wellsian: The Journal of the H.G. Wells Society, 2003

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2018

Women's History Review, 2017

Utopian Studies, 2016

In 1914 Zetkin was asked by her publisher, J. H. W. Dietz, to prepare a fresh edition of Ein Rück... more In 1914 Zetkin was asked by her publisher, J. H. W. Dietz, to prepare a fresh edition of Ein Rückblick aus dem Jahre 2000 auf das Jahr 1887, and in so doing she took the opportunity to add a foreword. The foreword was regularly reprinted in later versions of Bellamy's novel from 1914 to 1980, though it has never appeared in the (pre- or postunification) Federal Republic, and although the German Democratic Republic regularly included it in reprints of the novel, the foreword was also omitted from Zetkin's selected writings. There are three main collections of Zetkin's writings in English—those published in the online Marxist Internet Archive, the pieces collected in Zetkin's Selected Writings, edited by Philip S. Foner, and those recently edited by Mike Jones and Ben Lewis as her Letters and Writings—but the foreword has not appeared in any. Therefore, the time seems ripe for the publication of an English translation of the foreword, especially given the perennial imp...

Cosmopolitics and the Emergence of a Future, 2007

As has long been acknowledged, H. G. Wells was one of the twentieth century’s most insistent advo... more As has long been acknowledged, H. G. Wells was one of the twentieth century’s most insistent advocates of a world state. From the publicationof Anticipations in 1901 to his death in 1946, Wells evolved a political vision which rejected nationalism and free-market capitalism, and advanced global political institutions and (non-Communist) central planning as alternatives. In this chapter, I do not attempt to recapitulate Wells’ world-state thinking in its entirety,1 but I discuss an aspect of it that came late in Wells’ thinking, and which has been relatively neglected by scholars of Wells’ cosmopolitanism: the role of human-rights protection and government accountability.2

Socialist History, 2020

1917: The Russian Revolution, Reactions and Impact, 2017

This is the paperback version of 2005 hardback published by Thoemmes Continuum. H.G. Wells was... more This is the paperback version of 2005 hardback published by Thoemmes Continuum.

The Wellsian: The Journal of the H.G. Wells Society, 2000

The Wellsian: The Journal of the H.G. Wells Society, 2003

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2018

Women's History Review, 2017

Utopian Studies, 2016

Cosmopolitics and the Emergence of a Future, 2007

Encyclopedia of Modern Political Thought

Kritikon Litterarum, 2010

Journal of Contemporary History, 2004

Page 1. John S. Partington The Pen as Sword: George Orwell, HG Wells and Journalistic Parricide A... more Page 1. John S. Partington The Pen as Sword: George Orwell, HG Wells and Journalistic Parricide Although HG Wells strove for the greater part of his career for the creation of world government, his ideas usually suffered no more (though that was bad enough) than disregard. ...

International Relations, 2003

H.G. Wells advocated some form of world government from 1901 (with the publication of Anticipatio... more H.G. Wells advocated some form of world government from 1901 (with the publication of Anticipations) to his death in 1946, though his contribution to cosmopolitan thought is often overshadowed by the various totalitarian internationalisms of the 1920s to the 1940s. Far from advocating a simple, inflexible formula for the whole world, and far from demanding immediate revolutionary political change, Wells outlined several cosmopolitan models aimed at accommodating different cultures at different stages of economic and social development. Thus, while decrying imperialism, he supported empire pooling and education and investment to raise the colonial peoples to the economic level of their erstwhile exploiters. In Europe, he gave support to European federalism as a first stage to global governance. Ultimately, however, he saw global governance by function as the model towards which to strive. Functionalism, for Wells, permitted the exercise of local and regional culture without inhibitin...

Lost worlds & mad elephants: literature, science …, 1999

Page 187. John S. Partington (Reading) The First Men in the Moon and the'Corporative State&#... more Page 187. John S. Partington (Reading) The First Men in the Moon and the'Corporative State' The First Men in the Moon (1901) is about a scientist, Cavor, and a businessman, Bedford, who invent a flying machine capable of reaching the moon. ...

... permeated with progressive thinking and values - perpetuated through Guthrie's considera... more ... permeated with progressive thinking and values - perpetuated through Guthrie's considerablepopular 'legacy' - a ... to all these activities, it was the attempt to raise the people's self-confidence in ... See Merle Curti, 'The American Exploration of Dreams and Dreamers', Journal of the ...

Utopian Studies, 2002

Page 1. The Time Machine and Modern Utopia: The Static and Kinetic Utopias of the Early HGWeils* ... more Page 1. The Time Machine and Modern Utopia: The Static and Kinetic Utopias of the Early HGWeils* JOHN S. PARTINGTON In the first paragraph of Chapter I of A Modern Utopia, HG Wells attempts to differentiatebetween his model of utopia and all previous utopias. ...

In 1907 Clara Zetkin summoned the first International Socialist Women’s Conference and three year... more In 1907 Clara Zetkin summoned the first International Socialist Women’s Conference and three years later established International Women’s Day at the second such Conference. But British participation in socialist women’s internationalism did not just emerge in 1907 – Zetkin was already a leading socialist figure on the international stage from 1889 and was promoting the organisation of women within established socialist institutions around Europe from the beginning of her career.

In Britain, although Zetkin wrote for and was reported in a great number of socialist and labour journals throughout her life, the Social Democratic Federation’s journal, Justice, was her first major vehicle, providing a crucial link between socialist women in Britain and those in Germany and throughout Europe. In this paper I will explore Zetkin’s relationship to Justice, revealing that magazine’s importance for Zetkin’s prestige in Britain but also its role as a spotlight on European events as promoted by Zetkin in her writings and activities.

This paper analysis Woody Guthrie's lyrics and prose writings to demonstrate his formula for winn... more This paper analysis Woody Guthrie's lyrics and prose writings to demonstrate his formula for winning the Second World War - unionism and anti-Nazism.

This paper looks at Clara Zetkin's interactions with the British ant-war movement during the Grea... more This paper looks at Clara Zetkin's interactions with the British ant-war movement during the Great War, culminating in the International Socialist Women's Conference which she organised in Bern in 1915 and which attracted four British attendees.

In establishing the Socialist Women‘s International (SWI) within the Second International in 1907... more In establishing the Socialist Women‘s International (SWI) within the Second International in 1907, Clara Zetkin sought to bring together delegates from the women’s socialist movement from around Europe and beyond. In the case of Britain, women from the Indepedent Labour Party (ILP), the Women’s Labour League (WLL) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP) attended SWI conferences. But, although the SDP was relatively marginal in the British socialist women’s movement (the ILP prepoderated and the WLL represented many millions in the trade union movement), Zetkin’s patronage ensured Dora Montefiore, the leading socialist woman in the SDP, stood out on the international stage as the spokeperson for British socialist women.
Zetkin first came to Montefiore’s attention through her publications in the SDP’s journal, Justice (from 1899), and her initial meeting with Zetkin at the 1907 SWI conference in Stuttgart led to an ideological bond which lasted into the 1920s when both women joined their countries‘ respective Communist Parties. Indeed, Zetkin and Montefiore’s personal bond was so strikingly immediate that in 1909 the latter arranged an official visit to London by Zetkin, hosting Zetkin in her own home and arranging a series of events at which Zetkin was guest of honour. In 1910, when the second SWI conference occurred in Copenhagen, Montefiore was again welcomed by Zetkin, and again spoke on behalf of the British socialist women. Two years later, at the Extraordinary International Socialist Peace Congress in Basel, Montefiore attended as official reporter for the British Daily Herald, marching in the procession between Zetkin and Rosa Luxemburg, and writing of Zetkin’s leadership of the women’s contingent in her articles.
The favourtism shown to Montefiore at the 1907 and 1910 SWI conferences led to disputes (both personal and ideological) within the British socialist women’s movement (including an en masse conference walk-out by ILP delegates in 1910) and resulted in the SWI adopting policy with ‘official‘ British endorsement which did not represent the strength of feeling of British socialist women and, indeed, was disregarded by them when campaigning back home. (Such policies included calls for full universal suffrage – as against gradual democratisation in the suffrage – and the refusal of socialist women to collaboarate with ‘bourgeois feminists‘ in joint campaigns.) Indeed, although Montefiore retained Zetkin’s patronage during this period, she was marginalised from 1910 within the British socialist women’s movement precisely because she was seen as misrepresenting the British movement on the international stage!
This paper will discuss the relationship between Zetkin and Montefiore in the context of the latter’s position in the British socialist women’s movement. It will consider the British resistence to Zetkin’s patronage of Montefiore (and the policies which resulted from it at the SWI conferences) and discuss the coup which saw international socialist influence wrestled from Montefiore by socialist women in the ILP and WLL (two organisations with common ideological foundations). Ultimately, Montefiore became a noted socialist woman on the international stage whilst simultaneously losing her political voice in the British domestic movement – an ironic turn of events created largely by the distorting factor of Montefiore’s personal relationship with the SWI’s leader, Clara Zetkin.

The object of this paper will be to analyse the reportage of Cardiff City’s historic FA Cup victo... more The object of this paper will be to analyse the reportage of Cardiff City’s historic FA Cup victory against Arsenal FC in 1927. Despite being a Welsh team, Cardiff City were eligible to play in the English FA Cup, and its 1927 victory has proven to be the only occasion when a non-English team has won the tournament.

I will use contemporary accounts of Cardiff City’s matches, round by round, in the British print media, to assess how the unique phenomenon of a non-English team winning the ‘English Cup’ was received. I will investigate how prominent the exceptionality of this event was in media reports. I will focus on the representation of ‘Welshness’ or Welsh national identity in these reports to determine how far Cardiff City’s win represented a victory for ‘the other’, or how far the team was appropriated by the English for victory in a sport which many English consider their country ‘invented’. I will assess how far (if at all) national distinction intensified as Cardiff City got closer to the prize – victory over Arsenal. I will consider whether a ‘Welsh national image’ was constructed by the media and what role stereotypes played.

Ultimately, I am keen to determine whether football was significant as a vehicle through which the English print media constructed a Welsh national identity or whether the sport, famous for arousing rivalries, inspired journalists to focus on other areas of identity competitiveness.

During the course of his 58-year writing career, Wells rarely wrote about Europe in isolation. It... more During the course of his 58-year writing career, Wells rarely wrote about Europe in isolation. It is true that he did write a number of books about one or several nations of Europe, but for the most part his considerations were of a wider scope. When writing on international questions (and such questions were addressed in most of Wells's work) he preferred to think globally, in terms of the world as a political unit. Indeed, one need only look at the titles of his works to realise that he was a cosmopolitan who could not think otherwise than in global terms; the words 'world' or 'worlds' appear in the following fourteen of his book-titles: An Englishman

This review considers present-day racist, misogynist and anthropocentric tropes as presented in a... more This review considers present-day racist, misogynist and anthropocentric tropes as presented in a Christmas theatrical interpretation of the 'Winne and Wilbur' characters. Originally created by Valerie Thomas, with illustrations by Korky Paul, Winnie and Wilbur are recreated in 'An Christmas Adventure by Wild Boor Ideas - with outcomes which may shock and offend.