In the shadow of Enoch Powell

Shirin Hirsch is based at the People's History Museum and is a Lecturer in History at Manchester Metropolitan University. When writing the book she was a researcher at the University of Wolverhampton.

• Introduction1 ‘The Commonwealth is much too common for me’: another 19682 The world in Wolverhampton3 Reverberations from ‘Rivers of Blood’4 Resistance in the schools and on the buses5 ‘A monstrous reputation’: remembering Enoch PowellConclusionIndex

‘Enoch Powell made his notorious Rivers of Blood speech in the Midland Hotel in Birmingham on 20 April, 1968. At the time he was the Conservative MP for the constituency of Wolverhampton South West. In her book In the Shadow of Enoch Powell Shirin Hirsch examines the impact of Powell’s speech in the Wolverhampton of 1968 and analyses its significance 50 years later. Hirsch draws on archival material as well as her own contemporary interviews.’Vivek Lehal, Socialist Review, Vol. 444 (March 2019)As the extensive list of secondary sources in the book’s bibliography suggests, Enoch Powellhas been the subject of considerable research. Shirin Hirsch’s short but powerful bookstands out by offering insight into the experience of those both facing and fighting theramifications of Powell’s speech and the attitudes it represented. Hirsch’s masterful commandof contemporary newspapers and oral accounts presents the reader with an excellentperception of the prevailing societal ideas.Midland History