One major obstacle that likely prevented Joseph McCabe becoming more popular was that he occupied the curious position of being too far ahead of his time for his own colleagues, but not quite far enough for most people today. The former meant that many people at the time tended to disassociate themselves from him, the latter means that many today dismiss him as irrelevant.
Among his most progressive views were those regarding women. He didn't have much to say about women's sufferage, but that was because he regarded it as a forgone conclusion. Instead, he focused his arguments on deeper problems, like the institution of marriage and women's economic position in society. He argued strenuously that women needed to have equal rights with regards to entering and leaving marriage, and that their position in society would be dependent upon their economic opportunities.
This book certainly isn't blind to McCabe's faults, some of which bear responsibility for his lack of popularity today. For one thing, he tended to see criticisms of his ideas as personal attacks, which certainly didn't endear to him to others. More importantly, he developed a reputation for being too uncompromising and too militant.
Sadly, his own path to freethought and disbelief was long and difficult - and the fact that isn't the experience of every nonbeliever was something which McCabe never seemed to understand. He could not see how others could arrive at a legitimate freethought position without also ending up as militant and vociferous as he. There are still people like that today - people going through an "angry atheist" phase - who don't understand why others aren't always as angry and outraged. Had McCabe been able to get out of that phase himself, he might have gotten along with others much better.
A Rebel to His Last Breath: Joseph McCabe and Rationalism, by Bill Cooke
Cooke's work is not just an exploration of the life of Joseph McCabe, but also of the intellectual and cultural landscape of England during the last decade of the 19th century and through World War II. In addition, he describes the politics and personalities of England's various freethought movements of the time, making his book valuable even to those who don't concern themselves with McCabe himself.
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