Haus Publishing Autumn 2023 catalogue

HAUS PUBLISHING

NEW BOOKS JULY–DECEMBER 2023

THE MEN OF 1924

Britain's First Labour Government

Peter Clark

£20

2 October 2023

History

Royal Hardback | 320 pages 978-1-913368-81-4

and lucidly illuminates British politics in the early decades of the twentieth century

The new Cabinet in January 1924 consisted, as governments had for generations, of twenty white, middle-aged men. But that is where the similarities with previous governments ended, for the election of Britain’s first Labour administration witnessed a radical departure from government by the ruling class. Replacing Stanley Baldwin’s Conservatives were Ramsay MacDonald’s Labour, the majority of whom had left school by the age of fifteen. Five of them had started work by the time they were twelve years old. Three were working down the mines before they entered their teens. Two were illegitimate, one was a foundling, three were of Irish immigrant descent. For the first time in Britain’s history the Cabinet could truly be said to represent all of Britain’s social classes.

This unheralded revolution in representation is the subject of Peter Clark’s fascinating new book, The Men of 1924. Who were these men? Clark’s vivid portrayal is full of evocative portraits of a new breed of politician, the forerunners of all those who, later in the last century and in this one, overcame a system from which they had been excluded for too long.

Peter Clark is a writer and translator from Arabic. He has written books on Istanbul, Marmaduke Pickthall, and Winston Churchill.

'Fluently

... insightful' —Neil Kinnock

LAND OF SHAME AND GLORY

Britain 2021–2022

Peter Hennessy

£22

10 Ocotber 2023

History | Politics

Royal Hardback | 220 pages 978-1-913368-88-3

Peter Hennessy charts the turbulent years of 2021 and 2022

Peter Hennessy brings his deep political and historical understanding to this study of two of the most turbulent and disruptive years experienced by Britain in peacetime. As the protracted withdrawal from the EU and the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic dragged on, a series of unprecedented challenges – some global, some domestic – laid bare the fragility of Britain and the Union. Beginning with the chaotic Fall of Kabul, which exposed Britain's military dependence on the United States, through the protracted, unedifying removal of a prime minister –and the economically catastrophic, short-lived tenure of his successor – that further exposed the vulnerabilities of an unwritten constitution; to the country sweltering in record breaking temperatures amid dire warnings of climate catastrophe; and finally to the death of a much-loved monarch, a point of constancy during decades of tremendous social and technological change. In his final chapter, Hennessy considers the continuities and upheavals of the last seventy years, asking whether there can be said to have been a second 'Elizabethan Age', and lamenting that the post-war period came to its close amid such upheaval and loss.

Peter Hennessy's award-winning works of contemporary history include Never Again: Britain 1945–51 (1992), Having it So Good: Britain in the Fifties (2006), and Winds of Change: Britain in the Early Sixties (2019).

BEYOND BRITANNIA

Reshaping UK Foreign Policy

Simon McDonald

£22

3 November 2023

Politics | Diplomacy

Royal Hardback | 280 pages 978-1-913368-90-6

The former head of the Diplomatic Service considers what the future of the UK's foreign policy should look like.

What should the future of British foreign policy look like? For too long successive governments have shied away from acknowledging uncomfortable truths about the decline of Britain’s military capabilities. As we approach the middle years of the twenty-first century a new set of urgent and daunting challenges – including climate change, technological development and the rise of AI, and a growing threat from China – lie ahead, making the need for us to reconcile ourselves with our position in the world more acute.

In this persuasively argued book, Simon McDonald shows how the UK's significant soft-power strengths can be harnessed to expand our international influence. Such a shift will only be possible, he says, if we first acknowledge the challenges of Brexit and the need to reduce our unrealistic hard-power ambitions. Excellence in areas that other countries care about will keep the UK internationally relevant in the second half of the century in a way that nostalgia for a lost pre-eminence will not.

Simon McDonald was the British ambassador to Germany and later permanent under-secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and head of Diplomatic Service. He is master of Christ’s College, Cambridge.

Simon McDonald

'Leadership displays the virtues you might expect of a top diplomat: it is elegantly written, discreet and observant' —Financial Times

When Abraham Lincoln said, ‘You can be anything you want to be,’ Americans, and eventually everybody everywhere, lifted their sights. Nowadays anybody can aspire to be a leader, and nearly everybody has to lead sometimes.

In Leadership, Simon McDonald assumes that thinking about leadership before you lead helps you to lead better. No matter the circumstances in which we might be called to lead – be it at work, on the sports field, or in the community – the example of top leaders in politics and public service (both their successes and shortcomings) can help you figure out your own approach.

As the head of HM Diplomatic Service, McDonald was responbile for over 14,000 staff in 270 posts worldwide, worked for six foreign secretaries, and saw five prime ministers operate at close quarters. Observing these people undertaking the most important and often the most difficult work in the country, he saw the behaviours that helped them to achieve their objectives, and those which hindered them.

Simon McDonald was the British ambassador to Germany and later permanent under-secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and head of Diplomatic Service. He is master of Christ’s College, Cambridge.

LABOUR'S CIVIL WARS

How

Infighting has kept the Left from Power (and what can be done about it)

Patrick Diamond Giles Radice

£12.99

12 September 2023

Politics and Government

B-Format paperback | 320 pages 978-1-913368-74-6

‘A thought-provoking book’ —Literary Review

The biblical adage that ‘if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand’ remains sound theological advice. It is also essential counsel for any political party in Britain that aspires to win elections. Though both major parties have been subject to internal conflict over the years, the Labour Party has been more given to damaging splits. The divide exposed by the Corbyn insurgency is only the most recent example in a century of destructive infighting. Indeed, it has often seemed as if Labour is more adept at fighting itself than defeating the Tory party.

This book examines the history of Labour’s civil wars and the underlying causes of the party’s schisms, from the first split of 1931, engineered by Ramsay MacDonald, to the ongoing battle for the future between the incumbent Labour leader, Keir Starmer, and those who fundamentally altered the party’s course under his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn.

Patrick Diamond is professor of public policy at Queen Mary University of London. He was senior adviser to the prime minister (2001–05) and head of policy planning in 10 Downing Street (2009–10). Giles Radice (1936–2022) was in parliament for forty-six years, first as an MP and later as a Labour member of the House of Lords. He was the author of fifteen books, including Friends and Rivals and Odd Couples.

LAND OF COCKAIGNE

Jeffrey Lewis

£9.99

5 July 2023

Fiction

B-Format paperback | 224 pages 978-1-913368-70-8

The Land of Cockaigne was an old medieval peasants’ dream of a sensual paradise on earth.

In Jeffrey Lewis’s novel, the Land of Cockaigne is a plot on the coast of Maine, once been a summer resort and now where Walter Rath and Catherine Gray, trying to assuage their grief and make meaningful their deceased son’s life, build what they hope will be a brief, fleeting version of paradise for a group of young men from the Bronx. But the town of Sneeds Harbour is not amused. Well-meaning doubts lead to well-hidden threats. The Raths’ marriage unravels as fatefully as Walter’s faith in democracy. Boys who’ve only ever known the city find themselves in a land that may as well be the moon.

A parable of American society today, Land of Cockaigne is by turns furious, funny, subversive, tragic, and horrifying.

Jeffrey Lewis has won a string of awards for his novels including the Independent Publishers Gold Medal for Literary Fiction. Among others novels, he is the author of The Meritocracy Quartet and Bealport.

BEVAN

Creator of the NHS

Francis Beckett

Clare Beckett

£10.99

5 September 2023

Biography | Politics

B-Format paperback | 202 pages 978-1-913368-83-8

The creation of the National Health Service was the most significant of the many reforms of the post-war Labour government. The man responsible was Aneurin

‘Nye’ Bevan. The son of a Welsh miner, he became a local trade union leader at only nineteen and in 1929 was elected as a Labour MP. Bevan believed the war was Britain’s opportunity to create a new society, a position he maintained throughout the conflict. When the war ended in 1945, the landslide Labour victory gave him the chance to make this vision a reality.

Known for his impassioned oratory, Bevan’s fundamental belief that the new NHS should be freely available to all was ultimately at odds with a government struggling to balance the books. He resigned in 1951 over the introduction of charges for prescriptions and glasses. With the NHS requiring an ever-increasing share of national income, this updated edition considers Bevan’s legacy as the future of the health service he created is fought over as never before.

Francis Beckett is an author, journalist, playwright, and contemporary historian. His eighteen books include biographies of four prime ministers, the first of which is about his own political hero, Clement Attlee. Clare Beckett lectures in public policy at the University of Bradford, where she is the director of postgraduate gender study in the Department of Social Science and Humanities.

DE GAULLE

Julian Jackson

£11.99

5 September 2023

Biography | History

B-Format paperback | 192 pages 978-1-913368-78-4

‘Intelligent and entertaining … it will be top of the modern French history reading lists for years to come’ —Times Literary Supplement

Charles de Gaulle, saviour of France’s honour in 1940 and founder of the Fifth Republic, was a man and leader of deep contradictions. A conservative and a Catholic from a monarchist family, he restored democracy on his return to France in 1944, bringing the Communists into his government. An imperialist, he oversaw the final stages of France’s withdrawal from its last colonies in the 1960s. As a soldier, he spent much of his career in opposition to France’s military establishment.

Yet, as Julian Jackson shows, it was precisely because of these contradictions that De Gaulle was able to reconcile so many of the conflicting strands in French politics. In 1958, and in response to a coup by the French military in Algeria, De Gaulle introduced a new political system, the Fifth Republic, ushering in a period of stability that has held to the present day.

Julian Jackson is emeritus professor of history at Queen Mary University of London and one of the foremost British scholars of twentieth-century France. His book A Certain Idea of France: The Life of Charles de Gaulle won the Duff Cooper Prize. He is a fellow of the British Academy.

THE PRINCES’ ISLANDS

Istanbul's Archipelago

Joachim Sartorius

Translated by Stephen Brown

£9.99

18 October 2023

Travel | Turkey

B-Format paperback | 120 pages

p: 978-1-914982-08-8

‘This book is a ravishing account of the enchantment of a poet by the landscape, rekindling in us the wish to buy a ticket at once and embark for the islands’

—Orhan Pamuk

Off the coast of Istanbul, in the Marmara Sea, lie the Princes’ Islands. An archipelago of unusual natural beauty, they have long been considered the maritime suburb of the imperial capital on the Bosporus and effectively shaped by its manifold history.

The poet Joachim Sartorius draws a loving portrait of the landscape and the light; the political observer Sartorius describes the microcosm, which was always a reflection of Istanbul–Constantinople–Byzantium, while the novelist Sartorius introduces us to the characters, who inhabit this time capsule.

Joachim Sartorius is a poet, translator, and cultural critic. He grew up in Tunis and spent twenty years in the diplomatic service in New York, Istanbul, and Nicosia. He was secretary general of the Goethe Institut until 2000, and from 2001–2011 he was director of the Berlin Festival. He is the author of The Geckos of Bellapais and a forthcoming book on the city of Syracuse, in Sicily.

THE ENGLISH GARDEN

A Journey through its History

Hans von Trotha

Translated by John Brownjohn

£9.99

11 October 2023

Nature | History

B-Format paperback | 104 pages 978-1-914982-09-5

Garden design in England was entirely reinvented during the eighteenth century. The strictly symmetrical gardens of the French Baroque were replaced by artificial landscapes almost indistinguishable from natural scenery. What continues to govern our notions of a beautiful landscape, even today, is the ideal image of nature conceived by eighteenth-century English landscape gardeners.

Hans von Trotha’s journey through the history of the English garden introduces us to twelve of the most important, original, and beautiful parks in Britain, all of which can be visited today. On the way, we learn how the new landscape garden was born of the spirit of political opposition. We also learn the significance of imitation Greek temples and Gothic ruins. The foreword presents a historical outline of the origins of the English garden.

Hans von Trotha studied literature in Heidelberg and Berlin, doing a PhD in eighteenth-century gardens. He became a radio journalist and later a university lecturer. He spent ten years as the editorial director at Nicolai Verlag in Berlin and is the author of a novel, Pollak’s Arm (2019).

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