Books
Home
Education/Teaching
Books
Other Publications
Conferences
Grants/Awards
Feargus O'Connor: A Political Life
Merlin, London, 2008, forthcoming.
Reviews:
Unrespectable Radicals?: Popular Politics In The Age Of Reform
Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot, 2007, pp. 1-224.
Reviews:
Contested Sites: Commemoration, Memorial and Popular Politics in Nineteenth Century Britain
Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot, 2004, pp. 1-176.
Reviews:
S. Semmel, Journal of British Studies, 2006, ‘Perhaps the most satisfying essay is Pickering’s account of William Cobbett’s famous 1819 exhuming
of Thomas Paine... Pickering and Tyrrell’s solid and important volume [Contested Sites] should inspire further work in this compelling field’.
Friends of the People: Uneasy Radicals in the Age of the Chartists
Merlin Press, London, 2002, pp. 1-176.
Reviews:
P. Jupp, History, 2004, '…a significant addition to current scholarship…For those who teach Chartism, at whatever level,
this will be a useful and instructive book to add to the reading list. Each essay can be read on its own, and taken together,
they would provide a sound basis for a class discussion on the national and local dimensions of Chartism'.
M. Taylor, English Historical Review, 2003, 'Ashton and Pickering are particularly persuasive in suggesting a range of
reasons why these six men became caught up in Chartism...[a] rich and interesting book'.
M. McKenna, Labour History, 2004, 'Paul Pickering and Owen Ashton's Friends of the People fills a gap in Chartist
historiography and provides a valuable opportunity to compare the backgrounds and contributions of six Chartist intellectuals
in Britain…In the six chapters in Friends of the People, each of them meticulously research and well written, there is ample
demonstration of all the values of biographical history'.
Back To Top Of Page
The People's Bread: A History of the Anti-Corn Law League
Leicester University Press, 2000, pp. 1-304.
Reviews:
M. Chase, H-Albion, 2001 '[The People's Bread] is an important and significant book, of interest not only to historians of
mid-nineteenth century politics but also of pressure groups, religion, the theatre, women and society more generally. It
represents a considerable advance on existing knowledge of the Anti-Corn law League'.
R. Spall, The Historian, 2003 'This book is an important contribution. Its approach is as interesting as it contemporary… The
People's Bread succeeds admirably in restoring the Anit-Corn-Law League to its rightful place in the popular politics of early
Victorian Britain and in illuminating the variety, vitality, radicalism, and innovations to both the scale and practice of politics in
the era of reform after 1832. It is recommended highly'.
M. Taylor, Victorian Studies, 2002, 'a new history of the League is to be welcomed, especially when it has been
undertaken by two experienced social historians of the early Victorian age…We now have a study of the second-most
famous agitation of the early Victorian years, which complements Dorothy Thompson's study of the most famous agitation of
all: the Chartists…for those who hunger after evidence of why the League became the template for subsequent
extra-parliamentary campaigns at home and abroad, The People's Bread is a real feast'.
D. Johnson, History Today, 2002, '[The People's Bread] has put the League back where contemporaries saw it, at the
centre of society. [It] should become [a] standard text…'
J. Prest, English Historical Review, 2002, '[The People's Bread] is 'innovatory', 'lively', 'brilliantly described'.
E. Jones, American Historical Review, 2001, 'In their lucid book, Paul A. Pickering and Alex Tyrrell dissect the League
meticulously, down to the individual biographies of its leaders'. '…an excellent study of a major political campaign.' .
R. Isaac, LaTrobe Journal of Politics, 2000, 'This book by two LaTrobians is a micro-study that makes a major contribution to
the illumination of the history of the rise of the modern bourgeois capitalist world order. It is also a model of what the maturing
field of ethnographic - social-cultural-political - history can bring forth'.
Back To Top Of Page
Chartism and the Chartists in Manchester and Salford
Macmillan, Basingstoke, (St Martins, New York), 1995, pp. 1-294.
Reviews:
N. Kirk, English Historical Review, 1997, 'Pickering's pioneering and superbly researched study...not only fills
an important gap in the local historiography of Chartism but also offers the reader a fascinating and extremely refreshing
social and anthropological approach which could usefully act as a pioneering model for future research into popular movements
in a range of localities....The overall result is most impressive....In sum, this is an important book which should be widely read
and which opens new and exciting lines of research...'
M. Weaver, Victorian Studies, 1996, 'Pickering succeeds in fleshing out our knowledge of Chartism in the
'shock city of industrialisation', and he makes a serious contribution to numerous debates about the national movement as well.
His research in both primary and secondary sources is impressive...'
S. Weaver, American Historical Review, 1997, 'In his richly detailed middle chapters, Pickering situates
Chartism in the broader context of a reformist impulse that concerned itself with everything from free trade to temperance'.
J. Jaffe, Albion, 1997, 'It is the work of a historian keenly attuned to the vagaries of nineteenth-century
working-class life and politics, and its is based on the most careful analysis of the sources. Moreover, the rich texture of the
arguments presented permit the author to confidently and convincingly revise much of the received wisdom of many Chartist
studies...[T]his is a superb book and one that will surely be of great value to both historians of Chartism in particular and
British labour historians in general.'
R. McWilliam, Labour History Review, 1996, 'What will give the book enduring importance is part
three. Pickering has produced a brilliant piece of research in piecing together the biographies of thirty local Chartist leaders
...Only scholars familiar with the problems of the source material will fully appreciate the enormity of this achievement'.
Back To Top Of Page
Even When It Rained: Young Australia Remembers
Melbourne, 1996, pp. 1-46 (Australia Remembers 1945-95 commemorative publication).
Work and Society: The Impact of the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions on Britain
(edited and compiled with Alex Tyrrell), LaTrobe Studies in History, 1991, pp. 1-51.
Reviews:
ACT History Teachers' Newsletter, 1991, 'This book is never tiresome. It is instead very approachable, combining literary,
social, pictorial and economic sources into lively reading complemented by stimulating exercises. Dealing with one of the
fundamental revolutions in Western society it appeals to a broad audience, both senior and junior'.
Back To Top Of Page