Keir Hardie, the Bible, and Christian Socialism

About this book

Daniel L. Smith-Christopher focuses on the life and efforts of Keir Hardie, one of the founders of the UK Labour Party and a foremost figurehead of trade unionism. Drawing upon the work of two contemporary and significant American theorists—Herbert Gutman's classic essay on “Working-Class Religion” and Michael Gold's call for “Proletarian Literature”—Smith-Christopher marries British and American historical and theoretical debates to argue that Hardie's work is surely the quintessential example of a “proletarian exegesis” of the Bible.