The Future in Our Past

A fresh, accessible history of the 1926 General Strike on its centenary – telling a story of working-class community then and now.

The Future in Our Past tells the story of the 1926 General Strike on its centenary. It is a compelling on-the-ground account of how workers brought the country to a standstill for nine extraordinary days. Callum Cant and Matthew Lee take us on a journey through a Britain living on its nerves, from the London docklands to the South Wales coalfields and the railways and warehouses of middle England. Churchill feared that labour militancy presaged a Bolshevik-style revolution. The question of power hung in the air as rank-and-file militants pursued a chaotic, improvised and wildly uneven confrontation with the British ruling class.

This is social history at its most immediate and relevant. Cant and Lee revisit the communities where the struggle burned brightest, uncovering the lessons the General Strike holds for labour movements today.

Callum Cant is the author of Riding for Deliveroo and coauthor of Feeding the Machine. He writes for the Guardian on strikes, the future of work and workers’ rights. He is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Essex and co-editor of Notes from Below, a journal of worker writing.


Matthew Lee is a librarian and independent researcher and co-editor of Notes from Below. He is a contributing author to the upcoming book Higher Education’s Labor Upsurge.