The Chartists: The First National Workers' Movement

'[The Chartists] is lucid, well crafted, conversant with a mass of literature and highly accessible. It is in short a real achievement...' Professor David McNally, Department of Political Science, York University, Toronto

Chartism was the first national workers' movement, drawing together in activity working men and women throughout Britain. The mass uprisings of 1839, 1842 and 1848 brought many middle-class radicals prominence, but at a local level hundreds of workers also emerged to give the movement a strong, innovative working-class leadership.

The Chartists is the first study to place emphasis on the importance of these mass movements and on the problems of building workers' organisation during the period. John Charlton chronicles the key events and outlines the leading figures, examining many aspects of the movement that are frequently overlooked in introductory texts, from Chartist Christians and Chartist trade unionists to Chartist feminists and the impact of the movement on the thinking of Marx and Engels. Featuring brief biographies and an assessment of recent literature on the subject, this is an original and highly readable history of Chartism.