Nine Days in May: The General Strike of 1926 | Book Launch

Monday 18th May 6pm 2026 | 6pm

In conjunction with Oxford University Press

Nine Days in May: The General Strike of 1926

With Professor Jonathan Schneer

Nine Days in May , a new book by Jonathan Schneer (publishing March 2026)

In May 1926, nearly three million British workers downed tools to support nearly one million of their countrymen, miners whose employers meant to lengthen their working day and cut their pay. The General Strike of 1926 brought Britain to a halt; for nine days, the world's best organized working class confronted the world's most powerful, and self-confident, government. And yet the outcome was never in doubt, for Britain's most important trade-union leaders feared winning even more than they feared losing – once they realized winning would mean defeating the government by extra-parliamentary means.

In this definitive account of the General Strike, award-winning historian Jonathan Schneer mines hitherto untapped archival sources to explain why and how the Strike came about, why and how it was waged and countered, why and how it ended. In addition to government reports and TUC reports, he cites reports of undercover agents and spies, “special” constables sworn in for the duration of the Strike, volunteer strike-breakers, Communist agitators, trade-union leaders and rank-and-file members of trade unions; also, of course, the papers of politicians of all parties.

There may never be another general strike in Britain but this was one for the ages. No one else has researched this crucial event so deeply, brought out its human dimensions so clearly and poignantly and even-handedly, or told the story so dramatically.

Jonathan Schneer is Professor Emeritus at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He has spent his career researching and writing about labour, political, social, cultural, and diplomatic history. He has written many books, the most recent of which is The Lockhart Plot (OUP, 2020)

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