James Maxton was Britain's most charismatic socialist politician of the inter-war period, seen by many as a potential Prime Minister. MP for Bridgeton in Glasgow from 1922 till his death in 1946, Maxton was intimately involved in the strikes of Red Clydeside and his career straddled the great events that shaped modern Britain - two wars, the General Strike and Great Depression, the Means Test and Hunger Marches and the rise of the Labour Party. With Unique access to unpublished letters and correspondence Brown examines the shaping of Maxton's political career from conservative student to street corner orator to leadership of the Independent Labour Party. In this important biography, Brown argues that Maxton;s ultimate failure to capture the Labour Party for a programme of socialist change to end mass unemployment foreshawdowed the failure of an entire political generation.