The British Union of Fascists, 1932-1940:
A Concise, Classified Bibliography
Philip M. Coupland
Front cover of a BUF pamphlet
Introduction
This is not intended as a comprehensive bibliography but concerns itself primarily with the secondary literature dealing with the BUF published since 1980. Earlier secondary writings and details of fascist publications can be found in: Philip Rees, Fascism in Britain: An Annotated Bibliography (Hassocks: Harvester, 1979). Where appropriate, individual texts may appear under more than one heading.
Please send comments concerning any omissions or forthcoming texts to at drpmc66@ntlworld.com
(Note added 9 January 2009: The list below hasn't been updated for sometime but still provides a useful guide - I hope to update it soon)
Contents
The Historiography of Studies of British Fascism
Studies of the BUF; Studies of British Fascism including the BUF
Local and Regional Studies of the BUF
The Aftermath of the Olympia Meeting
The BUF and the Roman Catholic Church
Wartime Internment of Fascists
The British Free Corps of the Waffen SS
The Historiography of Studies of British Fascism
John Newsinger, ‘Blackshirts, Blueshirts, and the Spanish Civil War’, The Historical Journal, 44, 3 (2001), pp. 825-844
Studies of the BUF; Studies of British Fascism including the BUF
Benewick, Robert, The Fascist Movement in Britain (London: Allen Lane, 1972).
Booker, J.A., Blackshirts-on-Sea: A Pictorial History of the Mosley Summer Camps 1933-1938 (London: Brockingday, 1999). [Many fascinating, previously unseen, photographs with accompanying text. Written by a Mosleyite]
Bradshaw, R., Germany Calling: A Short History of British Fascism (Nottingham: Mushroom Bookshop, 1993).
Cronin, M., 'Introduction: 'Tomorrow We Live' - The Failure of British Fascism?', in Cronin, M. (ed.), The Failure of British Fascism; The Far Right and the Fight for Political Recognition (Basingstoke: Croom Helm, 1995).
Coupland, Philip M., 'H.G. Wells's 'Liberal Fascism'', Journal of Contemporary History, 35 4 (October 2000), 577-594. [Includes Mosley's failed attempt to secure Wells' support]
Coupland, Philip M., ‘‘Left Wing Fascism’ in Theory and Practice: The Case of the British Union of Fascists’, 20th Century British History, 13 1 (2002), 38-61
Cross, Colin, The Fascists in Britain (New York: St Martin's Press, 1963).
Eatwell, Roger, Fascism: A History (London: Chatto & Windus, 1995).
Griffiths, Richard, Fellow Travellers of the Right: British Enthusiasts for Nazi Germany 1933-9 (London: Constable, 1980).
Griffiths, Richard, Patriotism Perverted: Captain Ramsay, The Right Club and British Anti-Semitism, 1939-40 (London: Constable, 1998).
Lewis, D.S., Illusions of Grandeur: Mosley, Fascism and British Society, 1931-81 (Manchester: MUP, 1987).
Linehan, Thomas, British fascism 1918-39: Parties, ideology and culture (Manchester: MUP, 2000).
Mitchell, Andrew, 'Mosley and the BUF: British Fascism in the 1930s', Modern History Review, (1997) 18-21.
Mullally, F., Fascism Inside England (London: Claude Morris, 1946).
Renton, David, Fascism, Anti-Fascism and Britain in the 1940s (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000).
Renton, David, ‘British Fascism Reconsidered’, 65-78 in This Rough Game (2000).
Sparks, Colin, Never Again: The hows and whys of stopping fascism (London: Bookmarks, 1980).
Stevenson, John and Cook, Chris, The Slump (London: Quartet, 1979).
Thorpe, Andrew, The Failure of Political Extremism in Inter-War Britain (Exeter: University of Exeter, 1987).
Thurlow, Richard, Fascism in Britain: A History, 1918-1985 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987).
Weber, Eugen, Varieties of Fascism (New York: Anvil, 1964).
Berman, J., ‘Of Oceans and Opposition: The Waves, Mosley and the New Party’, in Merry Pawlowski (ed.), Virginia Woolf and Fascism: Resisting the Dictators' Seduction (London: Palgrave, 2001).
Farr, B.S., The Development and Impact of Right Wing Politics in Britain 1903-32 (New York: Garland, 1987).
Mandle, M.F. 'The New Party', Historical Studies: Australia and New Zealand, 12 (1966), 343-355.
Cook, Colin, 'A fascist memory: Oswald Mosley and the myth of the airman', European Review of History, 4 2 (1997), 147-162.
Cullen, Stephen, M. 'Leaders and Martyrs: Codreanu, Mosley and José Antonio,' History, 71 (1986), pp.408-430, .
Dalley, Jan, Diana Mosley: A Life (London: Faber and Faber, 1999):
Martin, Paul, 'Contextualising Mosley', History Today, 48 5 (1998), 62-63. [relating to the Channel 4 drama Mosley)
Mosley, Diana. A Life of Contrasts: An Autobiography (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1977).
Mosley, Diana, Loved Ones: Pen Portraits (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1985).
Mosley, Nicholas, Rules of the Game (London: Secker and Warburg, 1982).
Mosley, Nicholas, Beyond the Pale (London: Secker and Warburg, 1983).
Mosley, Oswald, My Life (London: Nelson, 1968).
Ritschel, Daniel, The Politics of Planning: The Debate on Economic Planning in Britain in the 1930s (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997).
Skidelsky, Robert, Oswald Mosley (London: Macmillan, 1990).
Thurlow, Richard, 'The Return of the Jeremiah: The Rejected Knowledge of Sir Oswald Mosley in the 1930s,' in Lunn, K. and Thurlow, R. C. (eds.), British Fascism (London: Croom Helm, 1980).
White, D.S., Lost Comrades: Socialists of the Front Generation, 1918-1945 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1992).
Local and Regional Studies of the BUF
Brewer, J.D., Mosley's Men: The British Union of Fascists in the West Midlands (Aldershot: Gower Publishing, 1984).
Coupland, Philip M., 'The Blackshirts in Northampton, 1933-1940', Northampton-shire Past and Present, 53 (2000), 71-82.
Cullen, Stephen M., 'Another Nationalism: The British Union of Fascists in Glamorgan', The Welsh History Review, 17 1 (1994), 101-114.
Cullen, Stephen M., "The British Union of Fascists in Scotland", Proceedings of the Association of Scottish Historical Studies, (1994), 116-123.
Francis, Hywel, Miners Against Fascism: Wales and the Spanish Civil War (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1984).
Kibblewhite, L. and Rigby, A. Fascism in Aberdeen (Aberdeen: Aberdeen Peoples' Press, 1978).
Lineham, Thomas P., 'The British Union of Fascists in Hackney and Stoke Newington, 1933-1940', in Alderman, G. and Holmes, C. (eds.). Outsiders & Outcasts: Essays in Honour of William J. Fishman (London: Duckworth, 1993).
Linehan, Thomas P., East London for Mosley: The British Union of Fascists in East London and South-West Essex 1933-40 (London: Frank Cass, 1996).
Loughlin, James, 'Northern Island and British fascism in the inter-war years', Irish Historical Studies, 29 116 (November 1995), 537-552.
Maitles, Henry, "Blackshirts across the border", Socialist Review, 172 (February 1994), 22-3.
Maitles, Henry, 'Fascism in the 1930s: The West of Scotland in the British Context', Scottish Labour History Society Journal, 27 (1992), 7-22.
Renton, Dave, Red Shirts and Black: Fascists and Anti-Fascists in Oxford in the 1930s (Oxford: Ruskin College Library, 1996).
Todd, N., In Excited Times: The People Against the Blackshirts (Whitley Bay: Bewick Press/Tyne & Wear Anti-Fascist Association, 1995).
Turner, David, Fascism and anti-Fascism in the Medway Towns 1927-1940 (Rochester: Kent Anti-Fascist Action Committee, 1993).
The Aftermath of the Olympia Meeting
Pugh, Martin, 'The British Union of Fascists and the Olympia Debate', The Historical Journal, 41 2 (1998), 529-542.
Biographies of leading fascists, oral history, studies of the membership of the BUF and autobiographical writings by fascists themselves.
Beckett, Francis, 'The Good Fascist,' New Statesman and Society, 17 June 1994, 94.
Beckett, Francis, 'Rebel Who Lost His Cause,' History Today, May 1994, pp.36-42, .
Beckett, Francis The Rebel Who Lost His Cause: The Tragedy of John Beckett, MP (London: London House, 1999).
Blench, J.W. 'Henry Williamson and the Romantic Appeal of Fascism', Durham University Journal, vol.LXXXI (1988-1989), 123-139 and 289-305.
Baker, D., Ideology of Obsession: A.K. Chesterton and British Fascism (London: I.B. Tauris, 1996).
Brewer, J.D., 'The British Union of Fascists: Some Tentative Conclusions on its Membership,' in Larsen, S.U., Hagtvet, B. and Myklebust, J.P. (eds.) Who were the Fascists: Social Roots of European Fascism, (Bergen: Universitetsforlaget, 1980).
Brewer, J.D., 'Looking back at fascism: a phenomenological analysis of BUF membership,' The Sociology Review, 32 (1984), 742-760.
Charnley, John, Blackshirts and Roses (London: Brockingday, 1990). [The autobiography of a blackshirt]
Cole, J.A., Lord Haw Haw and William Joyce: The Full Story (London: Faber and Faber, 1964).
Cullen, Stephen M., 'Four Women for Mosley: Women in the British Union of Fascists, 1932-1940,' Oral History, 24 (1996), pp.49-59.
Eckersley, Myles, Prospero's Wireless: a biography of Peter Pendleton Eckersley pioneer of radio and the art of broadcasting (Romsey: Myles Books, 1998).
Farson, D., Henry: An Appreciation of Henry Williamson (London: Michael Joseph, 1982).
Grundy, Trevor, Memoir of a Fascist Childhood: a Boy in Mosley's Britain (London: Heinemann, 1998): .
Holmes, Colin, 'Beckett, John [William] Warburton (1894-1964)', 24-29 in Bellamy, J.M. and Saville, J. (eds.), Dictionary of Labour Biography (London: Macmillan, 1982).
Higginbottom, M.D., Intellectuals and British Fascism: A Study of Henry Williamson (London: Janus, 1992).
Hill, Barbara and Holmes, Colin, 'Forgan, Robert (1891-1976)', 111-114 in Bellamy, J.M. and Saville, J. (eds.), Dictionary of Labour Biography (London: Macmillan, 1982).
Lamplaugh, Lois, A Shadowed Man: Henry Williamson, 1895-1977 (Dulverton: Exmoor, 1991).
Mandle, W.F., 'The Leadership of the British Union of Fascists,' The Australian Journal of Politics and History, 12 (1966), pp.360-383.
Mayall, D., 'Rescued from the Shadows of Exile: Nellie Driver, Autobiography and the British Union of Fascists', 19-39 in Kushner, T. and Lunn, K. (eds.) The Politics of Marginality (London: Frank Cass, 1990).
McShane, Yvonne, Daughter of evil: The True Story (London: W.H. Allen, 1980). [Includes brief recollection of author's membership of the BUF]
Pryce-Jones, D., Unity Mitford: A Quest (London: BCA, 1977).
Rawnsley, S. 'The Membership of the British Union of Fascists,' in Lunn, K. and Thurlow, R. C. (eds.) British Fascism (London: Croom Helm, 1980).
Reid, Brian Holdern, Studies in British Military Thought (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998). [Includes a chapter dealing with JFC Fuller]
Selwyn, F., Hitler's Englishman: The Crime of Lord Haw Haw (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1993).
Sewell, Brocard (ed.), Henry Williamson: The Man, The Writings (Padstow: Tabb House, 1980).
Trythall, A.J., 'Boney' Fuller: The Intellectual General 1878-1966 (London: Cassell, 1977).
Webber, G.C., 'Patterns of Membership and Support for the British Union of Fascists,' Journal of Contemporary History, 19 (1984), 575-606.
Webber, G.C., 'The British Isles,' in Mühlberger, D. (ed.). The Social Basis of Fascist Movements (London: Croom Helm, 1987).
Williamson, Anne, Henry Williamson: Tarka and the Last Romantic (Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1995).
Williamson, Henry, The Phoenix Generation (London: Macdonald, 1965). [A novel based on the author's time as BUF member]
Wise, Leonard, et al., Mosley's Blackshirts: The Inside Story of the British Union of Fascists 1932-1940 (London: Sanctuary, 1986). [Short, autobiographical essays by twelve former Blackshirts].
Bramwell, Anna, Ecology in the 20th Century: A History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989).
Coupland, Philip M., 'The Blackshirted Utopians', Journal of Contemporary History, 33 2 (April 1998), 255-272.
Cullen, Stephen M., 'The Development of the Ideas and Policy of the British Union of Fascists 1932-40,' Journal of Contemporary History, 22 (1987), 115-136, .
Douglas, R.M., 'The Swastika and the Shamrock: British Fascism and the Irish Question, 1918-1940', Albion, 29 1 (1997), 57-75.
Linehan, Thomas, British fascism 1918-39: Parties, ideology and culture (Manchester: MUP, 2000)
Nugent, N. 'The Ideas of the British Union of Fascists,' in Nugent, N. and King, R. (eds.) The British Right (Farnborough: Saxon House, 1977).
Renton, Dave, 'Was fascism an ideology? British fascism reconsidered', Race & Class, 41 3 (January-March 2000), pp. 72-84.
Susser, Leslie, 'Fascism, Literary Modernism and Modernization: The British Case', Tel Aviver Jahrbuch fur deutsche Geschichte, 18 (1989), 463-486.
Webber, G.C., The Ideology of the British Right (Beckenham: Croom Helm, 1986).
Gender and the BUF
Cullen, S.M., 'Four Women for Mosley: Women in the British Union of Fascists, 1932-1940,' Oral History, 24 (1996), 49-59.
Collins, Tony, ‘Return to Manhood: The Cult of Masculinity and the British Union of Fascists’, International Journal of the History of Sport 3 1 (December 1999), 145-162.
Douglas, R.M., Feminist Freikorps: The British Voluntary Women Police, 1914-1940 (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1999). [Concerning the leading Mosleyite Mary Allen]
Durham, Martin, 'Women and the British Union of Fascists, 1932-1940,' in Kushner, A. and Lunn. K. (eds.). The Politics of Marginality (London: Frank Cass, 1990).
Durham, Martin, 'Gender and the British Union of Fascists,' Journal of Contemporary History, 27 (1992), pp.513-529.
Durham, Martin, Women and Fascism (London: Routledge, 1998).
Durham, Martin, ‘Fascism, Socialism and the Politics of Gender: A Reply’, Socialist History, 20 (2001), 83-91.
Gottlieb, Julie, V., ‘Motherly Hate: Gendering Anti-Semitism in the British Union of Fascists,’ in Gender and History (2002); forthcoming.
Gottlieb, Julie, V., ‘Female Fanatics: Women’s Sphere in the British Union of Fascists,’ in eds. M. Powers and P. Baccheta, Right Wing Women Across the Globe (London: Routledge, 2002; forthcoming)
Gottlieb, Julie, V., ‘Women Blackshirts,’ BBC History Magazine, Vol. 1, no. 8, December, 2000.
Gottlieb, Julie, V., Feminine Fascism: Women in Britain’s Fascist Movement, 1923-1945 (London: I.B. Tauris, 2000).
Gottlieb, Julie, V., ‘Suffragette Experiences Through the Filter of Fascism,’ in eds. Claire Eustance and Joan Ryan, A Suffrage Reader: Charting Directions in British Suffrage History, (London: Cassell, 2000)
Gottlieb, Julie, V.,’Women and Fascism in the East End,’ in Jewish Culture and History (1999); also appearing in Remembering Cable Street: Fascism and Anti-Fascism in British Society (Ilford: Frank Cass, 1999)
Kean, Hilda, 'Some Problems of Constructing and Reconstructing a Suffragette's Life: Mary Richardson, suffragette, socialist and fascist', Women's History Review, 7 4 (1998), 475-493.
Killin, Kerry, 'Women and British Fascism', Modern History Review, (1997), 21-23.
Renton, David, ‘Women and Fascism’, 38-50 in This Rough Game (2000).
Renton, David, ‘Women and Fascism: A Critique’, Socialist History, 20 (2001), 71-82.
The BUF and the Roman Catholic Church
Moloney, Thomas, Westminster, Whitehall and the Vatican: The Role of Cardinal Hinsley, 1935-43 (Tunbridge Wells: Burns & Oates, 1985). [See Ch. 2: ‘Trial by Fascism’]
Barrett, Neil, "Liberal Tolerance, Anti-Semitism and Fascism: Responses of the Jewish Community in Manchester to the Mobilisation of the British Union of Fascists in Lancashire, 1933-40", in Proceedings of the Conference on "Alternative Futures and Popular Protest", (Manchester Metropolitan University, 4/4/1995) Vol. I.
Brewer, J.D., 'The British Union of Fascists and anti-Semitism in Birmingham,' Midlands History, 9 (1983), 109-122.
Holmes, Colin, Anti-Semitism in British Society, 1876-1939 (London: Edward Arnold, 1979).
Holmes, Colin, 'Anti-Semitism and the BUF,' in Lunn. K and Thurlow, R.C. (eds.) British Fascism (London: Croom Helm, 1980).
Husbands, C.T., 'East End Racism 1900-1980,' London Journal, 8 (1980), 3-26.
Husbands, C.T., Racial Exclusionism and the City (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1983).
Kushner, Tony, 'The paradox of prejudice: The impact of organised antisemitism in Britan during an anti-Nazi war', 72-90 in Kushner, Tony and Lunn, Kenneth (eds.), Traditions of Intolerance: Historical perspective on fascism and race discourse in Britain (Manchester: MUP, 1989).
Kushner, Tony, The persistence of prejudice: Antisemitism in British society during the Second World War (Manchester: MUP, 1989).
Lebzelter, G.G., Political Anti-Semitism in England 1918-1939 (London: 1978).
Barrett, Neil, 'A Bright Shining Star: The CPGB and Anti-Fascist Activism in the 1930s', Science and Society, 61 (1997), 10-26.
Brown, Tom and Hardy, George, "The struggle against Fascism in the Thirties", in Bulletin of the North East Labour History Society, 18 (1984), 20-3.
The Cable Street Group, The Battle of Cable Street 1936: A People's History (London: The Cable Street Group, 1995): .
Copsey, Nigel, Anti-fascism in Britain (London: Palgrave, formerly Macmillan Press, 1999).
Cullen, Stephen M., 'Political Violence: The Case of the British Union of Fascists,' Journal of Contemporary History, 22 (1993), pp.115-136.
Hope, John, 'Cable Street, the BUF and the Italian subsidy', Searchlight, 292 (October 1999), 20-21.
Hope, John, 'Blackshirts, Knuckle-Dusters and Lawyers: Documentary Essay on the Mosley versus Marchbank Papers', Labour History Review, 65 1 (Spring 2000), pp.41-58.
Kushner, Tony and Valman, Nadia (eds.) Remembering Cable Street: Fascism and Anti-Fascism in British Society (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2000).
Maitles, Henry, "Confronting Fascism: attitudes of the Glasgow Jewish community in the 1930s", Local Historian, 27 2 (May 1997), 106-17.
Newman, M., 'Democracy versus Dictatorship: Labour's Role in the Struggle against British Fascism, 1933-1936', History Workshop Journal, (1978), 67-88.
Panayi, Panikos, 'Anti-immigrant riots in nineteenth - and twentieth-century Britain', 1-25 in Panayi, Panikos (ed.), Racial Violence in Britain, 1840-1950 (Leicester University Press, Leicester (1993).
Renton, Dave, 'Necessary Myth or Collective Truth? Cable Street revisited', Changing English, 5 2 (1998), 189-194.
Renton, Dave, Fascism, Anti-Fascism and Britain in the 1940s (Macmillan, Basingstoke 2000).
Rosen, Harold, 'A Necessary Myth: Cable Street revisited', Changing English, 5 1 (1998), 27-34.
Smith, Elaine, R., 'Jewish responses to political antisemitism and fascism in the East End of London, 1920-1939', 53-71 in Kushner, Tony and Lunn, Kenneth (eds.), Traditions of Intolerance: Historical perspective on fascism and race discourse in Britain (Manchester: MUP, 1989).
Srebrnik, H.F., London Jews and British Communism 1935-1945 (Ilford: Vallentine Mitchell, 1995).
Hope, John, 'Fascism, the Security Service and the Curious Careers of Maxwell Knight and James McGuirk Hughes', Lobster, 22 (19?), 1-22.
Hope, John, 'Fascism and the State in Britain: The Case of the British Fascist[i] 1923-31', Australian Journal of Politics, 39 3 (1993), 367-380.
Hope, John G., 'Surveillance or Collusion? Maxwell Knight, MI5 and the British Fascisti', Intelligence and National Security, 9 4 (1994), 651-675.
Temple, Richard, 'The Metropolitian Police and the Anti-Fascists 1934-40', Police History Society Journal (1995), 34-44.
Thurlow, Richard, 'Blaming the Blackshirts: the authorities and the anti-Jewish disturbances in the 1930s', 112-129 in Panayi, P. (ed.), Racial Violence in Britain, 1840-1950 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1993).
Thurlow, Richard, 'State Management of the British Union of Fascists in the 1930's. 29-52 in Cronin, M. (ed.), The Failure of British Fascism: The Far Right and the Fight for Political Recognition. (Basingstoke: Croom Helm, 1995).
West, W.J., Truth Betrayed (London: Duckworth, 1987). [Deals with attitude of the BBC to the BUF in the 1930s]
Wartime Internment of Fascists
Gottlieb, Julie, V., ‘civilian internees–World War II– Britain’; ‘Defence Regulation 18B;’ ‘Holloway Prison;’ and ‘Isle of Man’ in ed. Jonathan F. Vance, Prisoners of War and Internment: A Dictionary (Oxford: ABC-CLIO, 2000)
Holmes, Colin, ''British Justice at Work': Internment in the Second World War', 150-163 in Panayi, Panikos (ed.), Minorities in Wartime: National and Racial Groupings in Europe, North America and Australia During the Two World Wars (Oxford: Berg, 1993).
Simpson, A.W.B. In the Highest Degree Odious: Detention Without Trial in wartime Britain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994).
Thurlow, Richard, ‘The Evolution of the Mythical British Fifth Column, 1939-46’, Twentieth Century British History, 10, 4 (1999), pp. 477-498.
West, W.J., Truth Betrayed (London: Duckworth, 1987). [Deals with role of Mosley's 'Airtime' project and propaganda broadcasts by Joyce and others in the decision to intern fascists]
The British Free Corps of the Waffen SS
The BFC included several former members of the BUF.
Weale, Adrian, Renegades (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1994).
