Professor Tom Buchanan

Professor Tom Buchanan
Professor of Modern British and European History
Kellogg College
01865 (2)70382
tom.buchanan@conted.ox.ac.uk

See page on Kellogg College website

Research

I work on twentieth century British and European history, with an emphasis on the impact of external events on British politics. I specialise in three particular areas; the impact of the Spanish Civil War on Britain; China and the British left (which is the subject of my most recent book); and the history of Amnesty International and human rights campaigning in Britain. I am currently researching a book on the emergence of the human rights movement in Britain after the Second World War.

Featured Publication

East Wind: China and the British Left, 1925-1976

East Wind: China and the British Left, 1925-1976

East Wind offers the first complete, archive-based account of the relationship between China and the British Left, from the rise of modern Chinese nationalism to the death of Mao Tse tung. Beginning with the "Hands Off China" movement of the mid-1920s, Tom Buchanan charts the mobilisation of British opinion in defence of China against Japanese aggression, 1931-1945, and the role of the British left in relations with the People's Republic of China after 1949. He shows how this relationship was placed under stress by the growing unpredictability of Communist China, above all by the Sino-Soviet dispute and the Cultural Revolution, which meant that by the 1960s China was actively supported only by a dwindling group of enthusiasts. The impact of the suppression of the student protests in Tiananmen Square (June 1989) is addressed as an epilogue. 
East Wind argues that the significance of the left's relationship with China has been unjustly overlooked. There were many occasions, such as the mid-1920s, the late 1930s and the early 1950s, when China demanded the full attention of the British left. It also argues that there is nothing new in the current fascination with China's emergence as an economic power. Throughout these decades the British left was aware of the immense, unrealised potential of the Chinese economy, and of how China's economic growth could transform the world. 
In addition to analysing the role of the political parties and pressure groups of the left, Buchanan sheds new light on the activities of many well-known figures in support of China, including intellectuals such as Bertrand Russell, R H Tawney and Joseph Needham. Many other interesting stories emerge, concerning less well-known figures, which show the complexity of personal links between Britain and China during the twentieth century.

Publications

  • Amnesty International and Human Rights Activism in Postwar Britain, 1945–1977

    April 2020
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    Book

  • ‘Loyal Believers and Disloyal Sceptics’: Propaganda and Dissent in Britain during the Korean War, 1950–1953

    December 2016
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    Journal article
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    History
    © 2016 The Author. History © 2016 The Historical Association and John Wiley & Sons Ltd This article looks at the small number of British subjects who visited China and North Korea during the Korean War with a view to influencing British opinion. Although none were brought to trial, all experienced some form of punitive action, whether the loss of employment, loss of passports, or damage to their reputations. The subject is placed in the context of the Cold War, and the wider concerns about disloyalty on the Left at the time, as well as the controversies surrounding the Korean War in Britain. It concludes that the actions of these individuals have to be understood in terms of their alternative loyalties (such as to the ‘new’ China, or to an alternative vision of the United Nations), which ultimately outweighed allegations of disloyalty.

  • 'The Dark Millions in the Colonies are Unavenged': Anti-Fascism and Anti-Imperialism in the 1930s

    November 2016
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    Journal article
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    Contemporary European History
    Copyright © 2016 Cambridge University Press. The quotation in this title expresses a dilemma, as the 'dark millions' were likely to remain 'unavenged' so long as authors were asked to take sides on the Spanish Civil War rather than colonial oppression. Indeed, anti-fascism might well be thought of as, in a sense, antithetical to anti-imperialism. This article explores the relationship between anti-fascism and anti-imperialism, focusing on Britain and France. The first part looks at anti-imperialism in the era of the Popular Front; the second looks at how the tensions between anti-fascism and anti-imperialism were played out in the case of the major conflicts of the later 1930s in Abyssinia, Spain and China; the third discusses the imperialist assumptions of many anti-fascists. The article concludes by looking at the early phase of the Second World War.

  • Ideology, Idealism, and Adventure: Narratives of the British Volunteers in the International Brigades

    July 2016
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    Journal article
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    Labour History Review

  • Beyond Cable Street: New approaches to the history of anti-fascism in Britain in the 1930s

    January 2016
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    Chapter
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    Rethinking antifascism : history, memory and political uses, 1922 to the present

  • War in the Balkans: Conflict and Diplomacy Before World War I

    November 2015
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    c-book

  • China and the British left in the twentieth century: transnational perspectives

    December 2013
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    Journal article
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    Labor History

  • 'Shanghai-Madrid Axis'? Comparing British responces to the conflicts in Spain and China. 1936-1939

    September 2012
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    Journal article
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    Contemporary European History

  • East wind: China and the British left, 1925-1976

    January 2012
    |
    Book

  • Human rights, the memory of war and the making of a 'European' identity, 1945-1975

    December 2010
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    Chapter
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    Europeanization in the Twentieth Century
    History
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