Why am I passionate about this?

I’m fascinated by what people make of political events at home and abroad. The rapid expansion of public opinion in later eighteenth-century Britain, in tandem with the explosion of the press—newspapers, books, sermons, plays, poetry, novels, magazines, and cartoons—makes it a wonderful period to explore. People in the past were no less complex and sophisticated than we are; they simply lived in different circumstances, opportunities, and constraints, with different assumptions and priorities. My British Visions of America, 1775–1820 (2013) also deals with the British trying to understand foreign affairs, while The Wodrow-Kenrick Correspondence, 1750–1810, eds Fitzpatrick, Macleod and Page is full of events at home and abroad.


I wrote

A War of Ideas: British Attitudes to the Wars Against Revolutionary France, 1792-1802

By Emma Macleod,

Book cover of A War of Ideas: British Attitudes to the Wars Against Revolutionary France, 1792-1802

What is my book about?

My book moves the story on from the British debate on the French Revolution itself to the controversy over the…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Liberty and Property: Political Ideology in Eighteenth-Century Britain

Emma Macleod Why did I love this book?

Harry Dickinson supervised my Ph.D. thesis, and I am a huge fan of his writing, which is clear and accessible.

This book covers a lot of ground, explaining the different political positions people took in eighteenth-century Britain, inside and outside Parliament, but it’s so clearly set out. It’s an important book because it swam against the tide at the time it was published. The dominant opinion was that politics was an aristocratic pursuit and politicians were mainly motivated by self-interest.

This book shows that many politicians were driven by ideas, principles, and assumptions and that many more ordinary people were heavily involved in political campaigns and protests, too. 

By H T Dickinson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Liberty and Property as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

First Published in 1977, Liberty and Property is a pioneering book which covers a long period, from 1688 to 1790 and beyond, and makes a major contribution to our understanding of eighteenth-century British politics. The relationship between political ideas and political reality is difficult to define. Consequently, historians seldom attempt to link thought and action, but concentrate solely upon the facts of a given political situation. In this book H.T. Dickinson has succeeded in redressing the imbalance. Taking as his theme the ideas and arguments used to defend or reform the constitution and political order in Britain, he combines what…


Book cover of Dinner with Joseph Johnson: Books and Friendship in a Revolutionary Age

Emma Macleod Why did I love this book?

This is a fantastic recent book that offers a walk-off-the-page sense of its large cast of characters—Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin, Thomas Paine, William Cowper, William Blake, Benjamin Franklin, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and many others.

They were all regular guests at the dinner table of the London publisher, and bookseller Joseph Johnson, where he sat back and listened to his talented collection of authors talk about the issues of the day.

It’s both a great way into the world of publishing and selling books and a wonderful introduction to lots of famous writers of the period from a fresh new angle.

By Daisy Hay,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Dinner with Joseph Johnson as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A fascinating portrait of a radical age through the writers associated with a London publisher and bookseller-from William Wordsworth and Mary Wollstonecraft to Benjamin Franklin

Once a week, in late eighteenth-century London, writers of contrasting politics and personalities gathered around a dining table. The veal and boiled vegetables may have been unappetising but the company was convivial and the conversation brilliant and unpredictable. The host was Joseph Johnson, publisher and bookseller: a man at the heart of literary life. In this book, Daisy Hay paints a remarkable portrait of a revolutionary age through the connected stories of the men and…


Book cover of The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III

Emma Macleod Why did I love this book?

What’s not to love about eighteenth-century cartoons?! They are a brilliant way to understand at least some strands of public opinion on all kinds of issues, and I’m all about trying to understand what people were thinking and why.

This is a wonderful book, which contains a wealth of colour plates of graphic satires by James Gillray, Thomas Rowlandson, and many less well-known names. Their subjects range from political crises and the monarchy to fashion and manners to the role of the crowd.

It’s not just a catalogue of images with captions, though: it’s a really substantial discussion of the emergence and role of the genre of pictorial satire in the reign of King George III (1760–1820) and how to ‘read’ these images. 

By Diana Donald,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Age of Caricature as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The late eighteenth century in England was the first great age of cartooning, and English caricature prints of the period have long been enjoyed for their humor and vitality. Now Diana Donald presents the first major study of these caricatures, which challenges many assumptions about them. She shows that they were a widely disseminated form of political expression and propaganda as subtle and eloquent as the written word.

Donald analyzes the meanings of the prints, applying current perspectives on the eighteenth century about the changing roles of women and constructions of gender, the alleged rise of a consumer society, the…


Book cover of Imagining the King's Death: Figurative Treason, Fantasies of Regicide, 1793-1796

Emma Macleod Why did I love this book?

Poor George III: ridiculed in caricatures and the object of attempted assassinations!

This enormous book is a real page-turner. Its aim is to show that the changing meanings of words had a huge impact on the politics of the 1790s in Britain. The fourteenth-century statute of treason listed among its crimes that of ‘imagining the king’s death.’

In the reign of Edward III, that meant actually planning the death of the monarch, but by the 1790s, the word ‘imagine’ had taken on the modern definition of ‘envisaging’ or ‘fantasising.’ This much wider definition of ‘imagining’ had dire consequences for reformers who had no intention of arranging the death of the king but whose language might be loose enough to open them up to the charge of ‘imagining’ it. 

By John Barrell,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Imagining the King's Death as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

It is high treason in British law to 'imagine' the king's death. But after the execution of Louis XVI in 1793, everyone in Britain must have found themselves imagining that the same fate might befall George III. How easy was it to distinguish between fantasising about the death of George and 'imagining' it, in the legal sense of 'intending' or 'designing'? John Barrell examines this question in the context of the political trials of the mid-1790s and the controversies they generated. He shows how the law of treason was adapted in the years following Louis's death to punish what was…


Book cover of Scotland and the French Revolution

Emma Macleod Why did I love this book?

This is very much the oldest of my choices, and there are some great recent books on Scotland in the 1790s, but for me, this one still stands up for detail, excitement, clarity, and pace.

I live in Edinburgh, where much of the central action in this book takes place—there were radical reform societies all over Lowland Scotland in the 1790s, but they sent delegates to national conventions in Edinburgh, and Edinburgh was where many of the state trials for treason and sedition took place. 

By Henry W Meikle,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Scotland and the French Revolution as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.

Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank…


Explore my book 😀

A War of Ideas: British Attitudes to the Wars Against Revolutionary France, 1792-1802

By Emma Macleod,

Book cover of A War of Ideas: British Attitudes to the Wars Against Revolutionary France, 1792-1802

What is my book about?

My book moves the story on from the British debate on the French Revolution itself to the controversy over the war that followed. France declared war on Britain in February 1793 and refused to negotiate peace in 1795–97, so for the British, it was a defensive war, whose primary aim was to protect their coastline and colonial possessions against French aggression. 

However, the British were also aware that the conflict was fuelled by revolutionary ideas, which shaped French foreign and military policy as well as their new constitution. While loyalists supported government policy, opposition politicians, political reformers, and a new network of pacifists campaigned for an end to the war, while churchmen, women, and public opinion had their own particular concerns during the conflict.

Book cover of Liberty and Property: Political Ideology in Eighteenth-Century Britain
Book cover of Dinner with Joseph Johnson: Books and Friendship in a Revolutionary Age
Book cover of The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III

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A Long Way from Iowa: From the Heartland to the Heart of France

By Janet Hulstrand,

Book cover of A Long Way from Iowa: From the Heartland to the Heart of France

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Why am I passionate about this?

Author Reader Editor Francophile Minnesotan Once and forever Brooklynite

Janet's 3 favorite reads in 2024

What is my book about?

This memoir chronicles the lives of three generations of women with a passion for reading, writing, and travel. The story begins in 1992 in an unfinished attic in Brooklyn as the author reads a notebook written by her grandmother nearly 100 years earlier. This sets her on a 30-year search to find her grandmother’s journals and uncover the hidden interior lives of her mother and grandmother.

Her adventures take her to a variety of locations, from a small town in Iowa to New York, Washington, London, and Paris—and finally to a little village in France, where she is finally able…

A Long Way from Iowa: From the Heartland to the Heart of France

By Janet Hulstrand,

What is this book about?

This story, about three generations of women with a passion for reading, writing, and travel, begins in 1992, in an unfinished attic in Brooklyn, as a young writer reads journals written by her grandmother as a schoolgirl nearly 100 years earlier. This sets her on a 30-year quest to uncover the hidden lives and unfulfilled dreams of her mother and grandmother. In this coming-of-middle-age memoir, the author comes to realize that the passion for travel and for literature that has fueled her life's journey is a gift that was passed down to her by the very role models she was…


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