Output details

Parties at War: Political Organization in Second World War Britain

This 130,000 word book occupied the majority of Thorpe’s research time during the period 2000-2008. It reflects detailed research in 94 record repositories: on the national and regional-level records of the three main parties; on those of more than 100 Conservative and Labour constituency-level bodies, and more than 20 Liberal ones; and on the papers of the leading politicians of the time. This diffuse material drawn from ostensibly unpromising sources like minute books required unusually close analysis. Coverage of a range of themes entailed extensive reading and research to set the findings in context.