Kit Kowol
@kitkowol.bsky.social
230 followers 280 following 63 posts
Recovering academic turned parliamentary clerk. Author of Blue Jerusalem: British Conservatism, Winston Churchill and the Second World War. Brisbane, Australia. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/blue-jerusalem-9780198868491?cc=us&lang=en&
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
kitkowol.bsky.social
Had great fun writing this. How a spiritualist vegetarian who believed he had found the Holy Grail convinced Churchill and 5 million Brits to pray for peace and freedom during WWII.

gethistory.co.uk/articles/20t...
The Silent Minute
What do you do when your army has retreated, your ally has capitulated, and you face invasion? You pray.
gethistory.co.uk
kitkowol.bsky.social
Thanks for coming along. Nice cords too!
kitkowol.bsky.social
I see that my book made it into
@adamtooze.bsky.social “Chartbook”.

If you like long discussions of the political ramifications of British wartime food policy it’s the book for you!
Reposted by Kit Kowol
robertsaunders.bsky.social
Brexit ideology was shaped in the 1990s, when great power conflict was largely over, European security was no longer at issue & the US underpinned a global free-trading system.

It was applied in a world more like the '70s, defined by great power conflict, resurgent protectionism & an unreliable US.
rikefranke.bsky.social
@anandmenon.bsky.social has a point here. I used to think that Covid actually helped the Brexiteers as Brexit consequences got hidden in pandemic consequences. But in hindsight, Brexit really was terribly timed.

Article: on.ft.com/4mvoRtW
kitkowol.bsky.social
Thanks. Though it came as a surprise to read that I lamented the maintenance of the empire, church and monarchy!
kitkowol.bsky.social
Fab! That’s one step closer to me buying a new safari suit. Hope you enjoy it!
kitkowol.bsky.social
Knowing I was being reviewed in the @lrb.co.uk may have given me a few sleepless nights…

So chuffed to see the book described as“absorbing and original”!
kitkowol.bsky.social
80 years ago a bus strike meant many people had to walk to central London for #VEDay. A potent marker of how Churchill had fought a Tory War but the peace would belong to Labour.

Read more in my book:

global.oup.com/academic/pro...
global.oup.com
kitkowol.bsky.social
And Welsh history I assume?
Reposted by Kit Kowol
psurridge.bsky.social
Maybe we're asking the wrong questions about gender part #3578
lauraserra.bsky.social
I’m just a girl standing in front of a boy telling him it’s not true he has become more right-wing… it is me who has become more left-wing 🫠
kitkowol.bsky.social
There’s a joke to be made here about decolonisation and lynx Africa but for the life of me I can’t work it out.
kitkowol.bsky.social
Up the stakes and suggest you will get a 90s cellphone belt clip as an alternative.
kitkowol.bsky.social
Online would be amazing! I’m researching British conservative ideas of Australia since the war.
kitkowol.bsky.social
Does anyone know if it is possible to look at back issues of the now defunct “Right Now!” magazine - @evansmithhist.bsky.social I wonder?
kitkowol.bsky.social
Oh I don’t disagree in that it wasn’t particularly effective but it wasn’t out of the Tory mainstream at the time or imho all that surprising in the context of what Labour was doing at the time (and more importantly) what they feared they might go on to do…
kitkowol.bsky.social
Should have added that the great irony here is that Attlee and Co used their powers of coercion mainly on the working classes (think soldiers breaking strikes) for what were often quite Tory ends, like maintaining Britain’s imperial fiscal position.
kitkowol.bsky.social
Just because a) most of us like what the Attlee government did and b) know what happened next shouldn’t blind us to the very genuine fears at the time as ridiculous as they may seem now. And Churchill was far far from the only Tory to share them. End
kitkowol.bsky.social
When you add in Labours proposed reforms to the House of Lords at the time (the little scrutiny of the Commons there was) complaints about a dictatorship seem less far fetched. 3