Rolf Gardiner

A controversial figure of the interwar period, with an enthusiasm for hiking, nudism, folk dancing and voluntary labour camps, Rolf Gardiner, organic farming pioneer and co-founder of the Soil Association, believed in ever closer union with Britain's 'kin folk, kin tongued' neighbours in Germany, The Netherlands and Scandinavia. Whilst Gardiner's activities of the 1920s appeared harmless to many, by the late-1930s his continued engagement with Germany was to have altogether darker connotations.

Matthew Jefferies is Professor of German History at the University of Manchester and has published widely on nineteenth and twentieth-century German history. Mike Tyldesley is Senior Lecturer in Politics at Manchester Metropolitan University. His book No Heavenly Delusion? (Liverpool University Press, 2003) is a study of three contemporary movements of communal living with roots in the German Youth Movement.

Introduction, Matthew Jefferies, Mike Tyldesley; Chapter 1 Rolf Gardiner: Pioneer of British Youth Culture, 1920-1939, David Fowler; Chapter 2 Rolf Gardiner and German Naturism, Matthew Jefferies; Chapter 3 'Potencies of the earth': Rolf Gardiner and the English Folk Dance Revival, Georgina Boyes; Chapter 4 Rolf Gardiner, Farming and the English Landscape, Richard Moore-Colyer; Chapter 5 Rolf Gardiner and Pacifism: The Case of Max Plowman, Mike Tyldesley; Chapter 6 The Dangers of Definition: Post-Facto Opinions on Rolf Gardiner's Attitudes towards Nazi Germany; Chapter 7 Rolf Gardiner: An Honorary Nazi?, Dan Stone; Chapter 8 Epilogue, Matthew Jefferies, Mike Tyldesley;