The radical thread

"By focusing on political change in the cotton town of Paisley in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this book highlights important trends which shaped society and politics in modern Scotland. Having traced the evolution of the proud civic and industrial heritage of the town, the author then charts its erosion and the rise of competing popular voices which emerged as the old order deteriorated. Popular Unionism, New Liberalism, Trade Unionism, Labourism and Socialism competed for the mantle of the town's Radical inheritance. Yet the changes which emerged owed much to the town's past."--BOOK JACKET.