New book casts a fresh light on one of Britain’s most notorious fascists

A new book, written by University of Northampton’s Dr Paul Jackson, casts a fresh light on one of Britain’s most notorious fascists, Colin Jordan.

In this book Dr Paul Jackson looks at how Nazi-inspired political extremism influenced the political and social landscape of post-war Britain.

Jordan first became an influential figure at the close of the Second World War, since then he has influenced a multitude of Nazi-inspired extremist groups right up to the 2000s. More recently, his writings and profile have been adopted by more contemporary extremist organisations, such as the British People’s Party and a rekindled British Movement, who have used Jordan as an inspirational figure for their own reconfigurations of a National Socialist agenda.

The University of Northampton’s Dr Paul Jackson, Senior Lecturer in Modern History, explained: “The history of how Nazi-inspired extremist groups have operated in the UK since the close of the Second World War is fascinating; and is distinctly echoing across today’s political landscape.”

In writing the book, Dr Jackson’s cites the access to the University of Northampton’s  Searchlight Archive as a key resource. “The University of Northampton is home to the Searchlight Archive, which is a major source of archive material that documents the activities of British and international far-right and anti-fascist movements. The archive is one of the largest collections of its type in the UK.”

The Searchlight Archive includes many extremist periodicals and publications, and details of clandestine gatherings and briefing documents, which have been collected by the anti-fascist Searchlight magazine since the 1960s. Find out more about the University of Northampton’s Archive.

Buy the book here