Britain's second Labour government 1929-31: a reappraisal is a timely collection of essays on Labour's second period in office beset by the international financial crisis of 1929-1931. Contributions from leading historians and younger academics provide fresh insights into a range of topics: the 1929 general election, Labour's economic policy, consumerism, agricultural questions, the Parliamentary Labour Party's role and Tory reaction to the 1929-1931 Labour government. Particular attention is also given to relations with the Soviet Union, socialism after 1931, the disaffiliation of the Independent Labour Party, and myths surrounding '1931' in Labour history.
This important reassessment offers new and, at times, more positive views of Ramsay MacDonald's hapless administration during a major turning point in twentieth-century British history. The second Labour government: a reappraisal makes available new scholarship that will appeal to students and teachers of British political and social history. It is essential reading for sixth forms and university courses.

1. Introduction - John Shepherd and Jonathan Davis
2. The 1929 election reconsidered - Andrew Thorpe
3. Labour dealing with Labour: aspects of economic policy - Chris Wrigley
4. Why was there no Keynesian revolution under the Second Labour government? Reassessing Sir Oswald Mosley's alternative economic agenda - Daniel Ritschel
5. The 'Loyal Lump': The Parliamentary Labour Party during the second Labour government - Robert Taylor
6. The Independent Labour Party and the second Labour government 1929-1931: the move
towards revolutionary change - Keith Laybourn
7. The second Labour government and the consumer - Nicole Robertson
8. The end of free trade: agricultural crisis and the politics of the national interest - Clare Griffiths
9. Labour and the Kremlin - Jonathan Davis
10. 'Bolshevism Run Mad': Labour and socialism in 1931 - John Callaghan
11. The right looks left. The 'Young Tory' response to the 1929-31 Labour government - Richard Carr
12. Remembering 1931: an invention of tradition - David Howell
13. Conclusion - Chris Wrigley

John Shepherd is Visiting Professor in Modern British History at the University of Huddersfield. Jonathan Davis is Principal Lecturer in Russian and Modern European History at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge. Chris Wrigley is Professor of Modern British History at the University of Nottingham.