History

Edmund Burke (1730–1797) was one of the most profound, versatile, and accomplished thinkers of the eighteenth century. Born and educated in Dublin, he moved to London to study law, but remained to make a career in English politics, completing A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) before entering the political arena. A Member of Parliament for nearly thirty years, his speeches are still read and studied as classics of political thought, and through his best-known work, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), he has continued to exercise a posthumous influence as ‘the father of conservatism’. This, the first of two volumes, covers the years between 1730–1784, and describes Burke's Irish upbringing and education, early writing, and his parliamentary career throughout the momentous years of the American War of Independence. Lavishly illustrated, the book provides an authoritative account of the complexity and breadth of Burke's philosophical and political writing and examines its origins in his personal experiences and the political world of his day.

This is the concluding volume of a biography of Edmund Burke, a key figure in eighteenth-century British and Irish politics and intellectual life. Covering the years 1784–97, its leading themes are India and the French Revolution. Burke was largely responsible for the impeachment of Warren Hastings, former Governor-General of Bengal, whose long trial is recognized as a landmark in the history of Britain's relationship with India. The author provides the first day-by-day account of the entire trial, highlighting some of the many disputes about evidence, as well as the great speeches by Burke and others. In 1790, Burke published Reflections on the Revolution in France, the earliest sustained attack on the principles of the Revolution. This remains, to this day, the most widely read book on the subject. Additionally, the biography examines Burke's parliamentary career, his family, friendships, philanthropy, and personality. The book's numerous illustrations and contemporary caricatures convey how Burke was perceived by an uncomprehending public. Controversial in his time, he is now regarded as one of the greatest orators in the English language, as well as one of the most influential political philosophers in the Western tradition.

An increasing number of middle-class families started to take the education of their daughters seriously during the first part of the 19th century, and boarding-schools were multiplying on both sides of the Channel. Schoolmistresses — rarely the ‘reduced gentlewomen’ of 19th-century fiction — were not only often successful entrepreneurs, but also played an important part in the development of the teaching profession, and in the expansion of secondary education. Uncovering their careers and the experiences of their pupils reveals the possibilities and constraints of the lives of middle-class women in England and France in the period 1800 to 1867. Yet those who crossed the Channel in the 19th century often commented on the differences they discovered between the experiences of French and English women. Women in France seemed to participate more fully in social and cultural life than their counterparts in England. On the other hand, English girls were felt to enjoy considerably more freedom than young French women. This book explores such contrasts. It reveals that the differences observed by contemporaries were rooted in the complex interaction of differing conceptions of the role of women with patterns of educational provision, with religion, with the state, and with differing rhythms of economic growth. Illuminating a neglected area of the history of education, it reveals new findings on the history of the professions, on the history of women, and on the relationship between gender and national identity in the 19th century.

The period 1902–14 was one of great change for the British army. The experience of the South African War (1899–1902) had been a profound shock to the army and it led to a period of intense introspection in order to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the force. As a result of a series of investigations and government-led reorganization, the army embarked on a series of reforms to improve its recruitment, standards of professionalism, training, and preparation for war. Until now many of the studies covering this period have tended to look at the army in a top-down manner and have often concluded that the process was extremely beneficial to the army, leading it to be the most efficient force in Europe by the outbreak of war in 1914. This study takes a different approach. It takes a bottom-up perspective and examines the many difficulties the army experienced trying to incorporate the reforms demanded by government and the army’s high command. It reveals that although many good ideas were devised, the severely overstretched army was never in a position whereby it could act on them, and that few regimental officers had the opportunity, or even the desire, to change their approach. Unable to shake off the feeling that the army’s primary purpose was to garrison and police the British Empire, it was by no means as well prepared for European continental warfare as many have presumed.

This book covers the history of British electioneering from the 18th century right up to the present day. It explores the relationship between British politicians and their public as well as the important changes that have taken place, especially in the television age. It examines what the current state of electioneering in Britain implies for the future, asking questions as to how the media can shape that future. The book argues that in the past, British politics has been characterized by public rituals, intended to make politicians more legitimate by obliging them to face an often irreverent public. In 18th-century politics and Victorian and Edwardian elections, face-to-face interaction was central. This continued between the wars, despite the emergence of the new mass communication media of radio and cinema. However, the same cannot be said of the post-war era and the rise of television. Today, most politicians are content to offer the semblance of meaningful engagement with the public — hence, meetings are designed to ensure that politicians only come into contact with their party. Where Lloyd George and Churchill relished a tumultuous public meeting, their modern counterparts are more risk-averse. This book questions whether we can persuade our broadcasters that encounters with the public must form a staple of modern politics.

This book is a survey of a wide range of British opinion on the United States in the nineteenth century and highlights the views of John Stuart Mill, Walter Bagehot, Sir Henry Maine, and James Bryce, who wrote extensively on American government and society. The Victorians made a memorable contribution to the ongoing debate over the character and origins of democracy through their examination of a host of issues, including the role of the Founding Fathers, the American Constitution and its relationship to the British Constitution, slavery, the Supreme Court, the Presidency, the spoils system, and party politics. Their trenchant commentary punctures several popular American assumptions, not least the idea of exceptionalism. To Victorian commentators, the bonds of kinship, language, law, and language were of great significance; and while they did not see the United States as having a unique destiny, they rallied to Anglo-Saxon exceptionalism, which reflected their sense of a shared transatlantic history. Their commentary remains remarkably prescient, if only because the American government retains so much of its eighteenth-century character.

In 1964, Britain's defence presence in Malaysia and Singapore was the largest and most expensive component of the country's world‐wide role. Yet within three and a half years, the Wilson Government had announced that Britain would be withdrawing from its major Southeast Asian bases and abandoning any special military role ‘East of Suez’. The purpose of this book is to document and explain the British policy process leading to the decisions to withdraw.

The book argues that the Wilson Government faced two fundamental dilemmas regarding its defence policy. The first was a conflict between Britain's limited economic means, which compelled cuts to the country's defence role, and its need to maintain its relations with its major allies, especially the Johnson Administration in the United States, all of whom wanted Britain to maintain a significant military presence in Southeast Asia. This conflict was fundamentally resolved after the Labour Party revolted over defence policy in early 1967, when the Government decided to withdraw from the bases in Singapore and Malaysia. Thereafter, the Wilson Government faced a second dilemma over whether to minimise the political and symbolic impact of its decisions for the sake of its international allies, or to maximise it for domestic political advantage. This conflict was not fully settled until January 1968, when the Government announced a faster withdrawal and complete abandonment of Britain's ‘East of Suez’ role, as a means of gaining acceptance for the social cuts it was implementing in the aftermath of the devaluation of the Pound.

Did loss of imperial power and the end of empire have any significant impact on British culture and identity after 1945? Within a burgeoning literature on national identity and what it means to be British this is a question that has received surprisingly little attention. This book is about the recent debates about the domestic consequences of the end of empire. This book explores popular narratives of nation in the mainstream media archive — newspapers, newsreels, radio, film, and television. The contours of the study generally follow stories told through prolific filmic and television imagery: the Second World War, the Coronation and Everest, colonial wars of the 1950s, and Winston Churchill's funeral. The book analyses three main narratives that conflicted and collided in the period — a Commonwealth that promised to maintain Britishness as a global identity; siege narratives of colonial wars and immigration that showed a ‘little England’ threatened by empire and its legacies; and a story of national greatness, celebrating the martial masculinity of British officers and leaders, through which imperial identity leaked into narratives of the Second World War developed after 1945. The book also explores the significance of America to post-imperial Britain. This book considers how far, and in what contexts and unexpected places, imperial identity and loss of imperial power resonated in popular narratives of nation.