Modern Wales

Drawing on an unrivalled knowledge of the sources, Kenneth O. Morgan discusses in this important collection key issues in the making of modern Wales as a distinctive part of the United Kingdom. The essays range from the age of Lloyd George to that of Aneurin Bevan. The topics addressed include Church disestablishment, war and peace, the university movement, the challenge of the new Liberalism, of socialism and of industrial unionism, the Attlee government, and the abiding influence of nationhood and nationalism. The second section focuses on localities, on political and social change and challenge in communities as diverse as rural Cardiganshire and Montgomeryshire, the south Wales valleys and the urban centres of Cardiff and Swansea. In the final section, there is a series of penetrating studies of major political personalities of the period: outstanding Liberals such as Gladstone, David Lloyd George, Tom Ellis, Stuart Rendel and Lord Rhondda; Labour and socialist leaders such as Mabon, Noah Ablett, Jim Griffiths and Aneurin Bevan; and the Welsh biographical tradition down to the revived nationalism of the contemporary era.