Translating Anti-Capitalism Throughout the Empire: Tom Mann and John Curtin as Transnational Activists, 1902–1916

Abstract

In the early twentieth century, socialist activists within labour’s transnational network organised against imperialism and global capitalism. Tom Mann and John Curtin were two such transnational activists who spread dissent within the British Empire. Through a study of their thoughts and activism, this chapter demonstrates the utility of key insights from social movement theory in understanding previous periods of transnational radical opposition to systemic forces. Adapting the concepts of ‘diffusion,’ ‘translation,’ and Sidney Tarrow’s ‘rooted cosmopolitans,’ it demonstrates the basis of interaction and interchange between histories of transnational activism and contemporary social movement literature.