Volume XI of the Dictionary of Labour Biography maintains the strengths of earlier contributions to this well established and authoritative series. It incorporates many scholarly and original studies of Labour movement figures from a variety of periods and backgrounds together with special notes on related and neglected topics. Volume XI pays particular attention to the role and contributions of women and the multi-nationality of the British Labour movement. Each entry is accompanied by a thorough bibliography and incorporates the most recent historical scholarship in the field.

In recent years historians and other social scientists have widely questioned the continued relevance of social class - as historical relationship, as sociological category, as philosophical concept, and in terms of its enduring political significance. The success of the British Conservative Party since 1979, combined with the weaknesses and failures of the Labour movement, have led historians and social scientists to reconsider the general nature of connections between the 'social' and the 'political' and the specific relations between the working class and socialist and Labour politics....