Party politics in a fortress colony : the Maltese experience
In Party Politics in a Fortress Colony, first published in 1979 with a second edition in 1991, Professor Henry Frendo pieced together, from original sources, an analytical narrative of how Maltese political parties had originated, formed and evolved and developed in contexts of time and place from the 1870s onwards. Although there were various social and economic undercurrents which sometimes came to the fore, until World War II the party political battleground remained tensely contested and largely dominated, at least as a surface phenomenon, by resistance to assimilation and subjection, cooperation or collaboration, under colonial rule. At the same time, an internally ambivalent socio-political dynamic came into play which kicked the earlier goal posts in an uneven playing field. Who ultimately were 'the Maltese' and how would they cope with such a changing situation unless they managed somehow to be in a position to control it, if they could? The period dating from Fortunato Mizzi and Sigismondo Savona in the second half of the 19th century to Lord Strickland and Sir Ugo Mifsud in the first half of the 20th century was an agitated and seminal one, about which few know much today, although its repercussions and continuities, if under different guises, approach and still resonate in contemporary history
Print Book, English, 1991
Midsea Publication, Valletta, Malta, 1991