"Finally, someone has provided a biography of the people's historian, A.L. Morton. Carefully researched, both admiring and critical in spirit, and written in a most engaging style, a style Leslie Morton and his works truly deserve, this book wonderfully recounts his life and his political and literary commitments, contributions, and contradictions. As one who has long admired his classic text - A People's History of England - for its retelling of Albion's story; its challenge to the-then-prevailing elitist narrative; and its formative influence on the making of history from below (or as I prefer to say it, history from the bottom up), especially the thinking and scholarly labors of the renowned British Marxist historians - Rodney Hilton, Christopher Hill, George Rudé, E.P. Thompson, and Eric Hobsbawm - I am moved to say: Thank you, James Crossley." (Harvey J.
Kaye, Professor Emeritus of Democracy & Justice, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, and the author of "The British Marxist Historians") "A. L. Morton has found his ideal biographer in James Crossley. This is no arid intellectual history, but a vivid and compelling account of the man and the times that made him. Crossley brings to his task the professional skills of the historian and a deep understanding of the cultural and political world that Morton inhabited. Steeped in the vibrant historical tradition of British revolutionary radicalism, his subject emerges as much more than the author of A People's History of England, but also a Marxist thinker, historian, poet, literary critic, antiquarian, folklorist, activist, educator and journalist. His reputation may have been sadly underrated in recent years, but this encyclopaedic biography recaptures his influence the development of Marxist history 'from below' in Britain and on materialist understandings of English literature." (Elaine McFarland, Emeritus Professor of History, Glasgow Caledonian University) "While A.
L. Morton was a name I knew well, I hadn't really appreciated that my growing interest in Christian radicalism would have been considerably illuminated by attention to his work, not least on Blake, but also the mid-17th century radicals, though not so much Winstanley whose writing were my major interest. So, I greatly welcome this fascinating intellectual history of Morton by James Crossley and the informed survey he has given us." (Christopher Rowland, Emeritus Dean Ireland's Professor at the University of Oxford, and author of "Blake and the Bible" (Yale University Press, 2010)).