After a century of steady progress, the British labour movement is now in crisis.

This is the disturbing central conclusion of Eric Hobsbawm's analysis of recent working-class history. The present volume brings together trade-union leaders and Labour MPs, socialist writers and workplace militants to debate Hobsbawm's assessment and to explore the situation and prospects of the labour movement.

So broad a range of contributors has rarely been assembled for a discussion of this kind. Their essays are remarkable for their candour and clarity, and also for the freedom with which they cross the barriers that too often separate political from industrial issues, and academic research from the many questions raised by practical struggles.

Nothing more clearly reveals the depth of Britain's crisis than the strategic and organizational controversies that currently divide the political and the trade-union wings of the labour movement. The Forward March of Labour Halted? will have an immediate impact, both inside the movement and on a wider public.