Return to Peterloo (Manchester Region History Review, Volume 23, 2012)

The Peterloo massacre of 1819 is one of the landmarks of British history. Notwithstanding the weeks of legal argument and the decades of noisy disputes about who was responsible, the sheer quantity of information is exceptional, so the basic facts have never been in serious doubt. This book, however, published in time for the bicentenary, offers many new perspectives and crucial new evidence, adding significantly to our understanding of the event and the many issues surrounding it. ESSENTIAL READING FOR ANYONE INTERESTED IN THE HISTORY OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND

Robert Poole is Guild Fellow in History at UCLan. He has written several articles on Peterloo and Samuel Bamford, and his most recent book is The Wonderful Discovery of Witches in the County of Lancaster (Carnegie, 2011).