Between Empire and Revolution:
A Life of Sidney Bunting, 1873–1936
Allison Drew
Empires in Perspective
978 1 85196 893 0: 234x156mm: £60.00/$99.00
This is the first scholarly biography of Sidney Bunting. His life offers a unique perspective on the British Empire, illustrating the complex social networks and values that were carried across the world in the name of empire. The lawyer son of renowned Wesleyan social activists, Bunting was radicalised in South Africa. He was a founding member of the Communist Party and campaigned for black emancipation.
Allison Drew draws on archival material which has only recently become available, including the Bunting family papers, records of Bunting’s Oxford years, trial transcripts from Bunting’s legal and political career, and the Comintern archives.
Sample pages
Readership
Empire Studies, South African Studies, History of Communism
Contents
Chapter 1. To save souls
Chapter 2. God and Gladstone
Chapter 3. A classical boy
Chapter 4. Imperial university
Chapter 5. Fighting for empire
Chapter 6. An Englishman in Johannesburg
Chapter 7. A new gospel
Chapter 8. The star in the East
Chapter 9. The earth is the workers’
Chapter 10. Fighting against empire
Chapter 11. For a native republic
Chapter 12. Into the wilderness
Chapter 13. Falling from grace
Chapter 14. A weary soul
Reviews
'Drew’s excellent biography of Bunting captures the extraordinary paradoxes of his life...superbly researched and beautifully written.'
– Jonathan Hyslop, Twentieth-Century British History
