Chapter 1: Introduction.- Chapter 2: Growing Up.- Chapter 3: Steyning and Summerhill, 1924 1928.- Chapter 4: Class against Class: London, 1929 1934.- Chapter 5: “Something to Do with the Daily Worker”: 1934 1937.- Chapter 6: History Progresses on the Popular Front: A People’s History of England .- Chapter 7: Early Receptions of A People’s History of England.- Chapter 8: East of England: The War Years.- Chapter 9: Towards Utopia.- Chapter 10: The Communist Party Historians’ Group.- Chapter 11: The English Utopia.p.- Chapter 12: England and the USA.- Chapter 13: From Sedgemoor to Netherwood: History from Below.- Chapter 14: 1956.- Chapter 15: Civil Wars after 1956.- Chapter 16: Ranters, Sects, and Utopians: Local and Beyond.- Chapter 17: Invoking the Muse of British Socialism.- Chapter 18: Turning 60.- Chapter 19: The Matter of Britain.- Chapter 20: Ranters of ‘68.- Chapter 21: The Seventies.- Chapter 22: The Party Is Not Always Right.- Chapter 23: Reflections: Intellectuals.

This is the first book-length treatment of the life and thought of the Communist intellectual A. L. Morton (1903–1987) who pioneered studies of utopianism, radical history, and English national identity. Morton is now best known for A People's History of England (1938) and The English Utopia (1952), but his output was vast, and he was once widely read in socialist circles and beyond. He published on the English Revolution, Chartism, the emergence of the British labour movement, the legacy of utopianism in working-class movements, Arthurian legends, Shakespeare, the Brontë sisters, Robert Owen, William Morris, millenarianism, imperialism, and much more. Through extensive archival work (including recently released secret service files) and a close reading of Morton's publications, this book shows how Morton was a key influence on the famed generation of British Marxist historians associated with the postwar Communist Party Historians' Group, often anticipating their more celebrated findings. This book analyses the interrelated significance of Morton’s political work and his role within the Communist Party of Great Britain at crucial points in its history. The book further functions, then, as a story of English socialism and Communism during the Cold War. 

James Crossley is Research Professor at MF Oslo in Norway, Academic Director of the Centre for the Critical Study of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements (CenSAMM), and Senior Visiting Research Fellow at King's College London.

“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))