Book Review: The Hard Road to Renewal: Thatcherism and the Crisis of the Left by Stuart Hall

An old review I wrote:

Book Review: The Hard Road to Renewal: Thatcherism and the Crisis of the Left by Stuart Hall

How did British culture fall in love with authoritarian policies and keep electing Margaret Thatcher to power?  Why didn’t the British left counter effectively?  Why is everyone over there so stuffy and why won’t Led Zeppelin reunite?  In 1988, cultural theorist Stuart Hall collected his essays into a book entitled, The Hard Road to Renewal: Thatcherism and the Crisis of the Left, to help provide an answer to the first two questions.  The second two may never be answered.  His book discusses various battles against conservative forces and an explanation of how the conservatives under Thatcher came to power and how they sought to significantly change British society.  The book also divulges into how the left has not stood up effectively and remains content to wallow in their electoral defeat and their defeated ideology.  They have not modernized or provided an alternative view of life under Thatcher.  The main crux of the book is the battle between a modern, socialist revolution that Stuart Hall would fancy and the return to traditional moral and economic values that Thatcherism rudely invited in.  The culture clash is dissected in this volume and in Stuart Hall’s eyes; the social progressive movement is losing.  People are favoring a return to old values and morals simply because they have been presented with a combination of no viable alternative and the awful leadership of the so called left leaning parties.

The book itself is divided into three sections.  The first part deals with the rise of Thatcherism and how the right and traditionalism formed a stranglehold on British society.   The second part deals with Marxist and Socialist theory and takes a big detour into the work of Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci.  Gramsci’s work on social and political hegemony is discussed in detail and explored on how it relates to the present Thatcher regime in Britain.  The third part of the book entails the essays Dr. Hall wrote about the problems of the left in Britain.  Margaret Thatcher was a deeply controversial leader yet somehow she always kept getting re-elected.  Hall goes after the weakness of the left and their inability to modernize and create an alternative socialist solution to the authoritarian tendencies Thatcherism has been accused of.  It is also impressive to note that Dr. Hall coined the term “Thatcherism”.  Many politicians and writers seeking a buzzword to describe the 1980’s in Britain were forever grateful.

Other than coining the phrase to aptly describe the leadership of Britain under the Thatcher days, this work is important to the field of political cultural theory by giving a thorough account of the Thatcher regime and how it came to be.  It not only ascribes problems, but actually doles out socialist solutions that could be successful.  Hall is able to incorporate hegemonic theory into Thatcherism, which had not been done before.  This is a very detailed approach on how to survive as a socialist in a conservative Britain.  It is essential reading for anybody trying to learn about Thatcherism from a socialist and a hegemonic viewpoint.   The only weakness in this collection is the lack of essays dealing with Thatcher herself.  Thatcher comes off not as a politician or even an Iron Lady, but rather as the biggest bogeyman facing Britain.  She seems like an all-powerful menacing force in the background of every social issue. Otherwise this is a true classic of political, social, and cultural theory and also a classic in the field of examining how Thatcherism screwed everybody but Margaret Thatcher and a few rich white people.  He also coined the term Thatcherism.  That is a very important detail that must be mentioned twice.  Thatcherism.