Chartism and the chartists in Manchester and Salford /

Given the profusion of local studies of Chartism since the publication of Asa Briggs's seminal collection, Chartist Studies (1959), it is hardly surprising that Pickering so strenuously asserts the necessity for his own contribution to the genre. And although Pickering's book does not radically reshape the overall view of the Chartist movement, it does usefully realize the potential inherent in a locally focused approach. His chosen city, Manchester, was widely regarded as the "shock city" of the early industrial era, the site of particularly harsh class relations, so it is very helpful to have a richly textured account of Chartist mobilization there. Yet Pickering's book offers somewhat more, including a dissection of the interrelationships among efforts to secure the People's Charter and other radical causes, a painstaking reconstruction of the fragmentary details of the lives of the individuals prominent within the Manchester movement (an impressive achievement considering the humble origins of his subjects), and a probing analysis of the symbols that gave expression to Chartist arguments. Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. F. Coetzee; George Washington University