Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
Telling insights into ‘the war on the principles of liberty’
ANDY HEDGECOCK recommends a revelatory new history of the Peterloo Massacre
Moments from a massacre: Still from Mike Leigh’s film Peterloo

Peterloo
by Robert Poole
(Oxford University Press, £25)

ACADEMIC analysis of Peterloo has been surprisingly scarce, so Robert Poole’s new book is welcome in shedding new light on the events of August 16, 1819, in this bicentenary year of “The English Uprising.”

Revealing a complex set of influences, Robert Poole rejects the notion that the Peterloo massacre occupies a point on a continuum with repression at one end and reform on the other.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
FORERUNNER: A stamp of Thomas Muntzer, issued by the GDR in 1989 Pic: Public domain
History / 10 November 2025
10 November 2025

NICK MATTHEWS recalls how the ideals of socialism and the holding of goods in common have an older provenance than you might think

gaza
Books / 31 July 2025
31 July 2025

ANDY HEDGECOCK recommends that these beautifully written diaries from Gaza be essential reading for thick-skinned MPs

satie
Books / 18 July 2025
18 July 2025

ANDY HEDGECOCK relishes an exuberant blend of emotion and analysis that captures the politics and contrarian nature of the French composer

Pic: Kharsohtun/CC
Books / 25 May 2025
25 May 2025

ANDY HEDGECOCK admires a critique of the penetration of our lives by digital media, but is disappointed that the underlying cause is avoided