Angol
Modernism and British Socialism offers a fresh perspective on late Victorian and Edwardian socialism by examining the socialist revival of these years from the standpoint of modernism. In so doing, it identifies with a 'maximalist' reading of modernism, seeing the modernist mission as extending beyond the concerns of the literary and artistic avant-garde to incorporate political and social movements seeking to bring into being a new world and mode of existence. British socialism was a 'revitalisation' movement. Much more than an aspiration for greater economic justice for working people, socialism sought to address some of the deep spiritual and cultural issues thrown up by the processes of modernisation and modernity. Britain's socialists in these years would strive to bring to birth an age distinguished not by economic justice alone but by a new, more transcendental conception of life based on individuals entering into a more intimate spiritual communion with their 'fellows', nature and the cosmos.
