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The Age of Caricature.
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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.
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.
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…
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.
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.
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…
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.
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.
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…
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.
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.
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…
I wanted to go to the sea ever since I can remember. In the hope of having the nonsense knocked out of me, my father sent me at the tender age of fourteen to the ‘Indefatigable’, a tough sea-training school. This only strengthened my resolve for a life at sea, and I joined the Royal Navy at 15. My family emigrated and I transferred to the Royal Australian Navy and saw service around the world. Although I no longer have an active involvement with the navy, I sail in my imagination through my sea-faring novels.
I’m greatly drawn to the caricaturists and satirists of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. In the days before the internet they were often vehicles for witty, sometimes very pointed, commentary on all aspects of society. This book, with prints from the National Maritime Museum, focuses on the Royal Navy during the later eighteenth and early nineteenth century.
Broadsides explores the political and cultural history of the Navy during the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries through contemporary caricature. This was a period of intense naval activity - encompassing the Seven Years War, the American War of Independence, the wars against revolutionary and Napoleonic France, and the War of 1812. Naval caricatures were utilised by the press to comment on events, simultaneously reminding the British public of the immediacy of war, whilst satirising the same Navy it was meant to be supporting. The thematic narrative explores topics from politics to invasion, whilst encompassing detailed analysis of the context…
I’m a former journalist. I’m nosey. I like to know what’s going on around me. I like to know how the place I live in has evolved. I was born in the UK, but was taken to southern Africa as a child, so grew up with English parents in a colony of the former British empire. I moved to another former colony - Australia. I worked and lived in London for several years. In all of these places I have been fascinated by the history that shaped them. The books I have recommended and the research I did on my own have all helped me understand my place in the universe.
The Brexit debate in Britain became bogged down in sentiment and myths.
All sorts of people brought up features of imagined history and former glories. Much of it was baloney, but it was not always possible to detect. This scholarly, evidence-based book guided me to a new understanding and appreciation of how my homeland developed over the 20th Century; it overturned some long-held assumptions.
I don’t believe anyone who wishes to understand those times can ignore this book.
'Forget almost everything you thought you knew about Britain ... You will not find a better informed history' David Goodhart, Evening Standard
'A striking new perspective on our past' Piers Brendon, Literary Review
From the acclaimed author of Britain's War Machine and The Shock of the Old, a bold reassessment of Britain's twentieth century.
It is usual to see the United Kingdom as an island of continuity in an otherwise convulsed and unstable Europe; its political history a smooth sequence of administrations, from building a welfare state to coping with decline. Nobody would dream of writing the history of Germany,…
I grew up in a reading and history-loving family. My parents read all the time, and their books of choice combined historical fiction and nonfiction. It’s no wonder I ended up teaching high school history for over three decades. The first books I read were my older brother’s hand-me-down Hardy Boys. Then, I went on to Agatha Christie. Books written in the 1920s and 30s were historical mysteries by the time I read them decades later, so the historical mystery genre is a natural fit. As for the Victorian age, all that gaslight and fog makes it the perfect milieu for murder.
The author’s unusual lens made this a captivating history. Murphy examines Victoria’s reign through the multiple attempts on the queen’s life. While the title isn’t entirely accurate (one would-be assassin used a walking stick rather than a gun), Murphy makes a persuasive case for the monarchy’s “rebirth.”
Defying death helped the queen survive some rough patches in her reign. Through eight attempts to kill her, the queen modeled “keep calm and carry on” in the best British tradition, and the public adored her pluck. After the final gunman failed to murder the queen, the aging Victoria said, “It is worth being shot at to see how much one is loved.”
'It is worth being shot at to see how much one is loved.' - Queen Victoria.
Queen Victoria was attacked an astonishing eight times during her sixty-three year reign.
Victoria's would-be assassins succeeded in changing the course of British history; whose penal system, legal system and policing would never be the same again. Taking the queen's mad, marginalized attackers as his starting point for an investigation of the entire era, Paul Thomas Murphy weaves elegantly through all layers of nineteenth century society and culture. A rollicking, riveting history, Shooting Victoria is the most multi-faceted story of Victorian Britain to date.
More than 40 years ago, I first started writing a book on great ‘Tory’ leaders throughout history, several of whom were inexorably tied to this Regency period. Having never lost interest in the topic I continued to study the period and its political life and found a way to parlay experience from my career in finance and international business into a biography of the most economically proficient Prime Minister Britain has ever had. Research for that biography as well as for future Industrial Revolution-related books on which I am currently working has resulted in a broad and fruitful list of books on the period's politics.
John Bew’s biography of Clement Attlee is superb, this biography of Castlereagh, “perhaps the greatest of all Britain’s foreign secretaries” (Andrew Roberts) is even better. Castlereagh is a Regency politician’s Regency politician; he fought a duel against the devious Canning and when informed he was popular, replied that unpopularity was “more convenient and gentlemanlike.” He also, with Liverpool’s help and support, designed a peace settlement that lasted in essentials for 100 years, based on principles of legitimacy and lack of vengefulness that his successors at the 1919 Congress of Versailles would have done well to follow. Bew writes beautifully; this is a great biography of a very great man.
No British statesman of the nineteenth century reached the same level of international fame as Lord Castlereagh, or won as much respect from the great powers of Europe or America. Yet no British statesman has been so maligned by his contemporaries or hated by the public. His career took him from the brutal suppression of a bloody rebellion in Ireland to the splendour of Vienna and Paris. He imprisoned his former friends, abolished the Irish parliament, created the biggest British army in history, and redrew the map of Europe. At a time when the West turns from idealism to realism…
My fascination with intelligence studies is tied to my previous experience as a practitioner. While serving as a military officer and CIA officer, I became curious about how two organizations with a shared history could be so different. Exploring the “why” of the CIA/DoD differences led me to the broader interplay of organizational cultures, individuals, and missions in influencing the evolution of intelligence, its purpose, and its role. These five books will provide the reader a broader appreciation of how intelligence was used to help policymakers understand reality and how intelligence organizations have been used to try to change reality. You will not merely learn something about intelligence but will be entertained and engaged while doing so.
I am fascinated by how different countries approach intelligence, both from how they organize intelligence activities and how intelligence informs policymaking. These various approaches highlight there is not a common approach to intelligence and help explain why simple definitions of intelligence are insufficient at capturing various intelligence activities and organizations. The Black Door looks at how British Prime Ministers have used intelligence and their relationships with intelligence organizations over the past century. A well-written account by two thoughtful and prolific scholars, the reader will appreciate how British Prime Ministers have used intelligence to not only understand the world but to also act.
The Black Door explores the evolving relationship between successive British prime ministers and the intelligence agencies, from Asquith's Secret Service Bureau to Cameron's National Security Council.
Intelligence can do a prime minister's dirty work. For more than a century, secret wars have been waged directly from Number 10. They have staved off conflict, defeats and British decline through fancy footwork, often deceiving friend and foe alike. Yet as the birth of the modern British secret service in 1909, prime ministers were strangers to the secret world - sometimes with disastrous consequences. During the Second World War, Winston Churchill oversaw a…
I am a journalist who spent 15 years reporting from all over the world – Kabul, Baghdad, New Delhi, Beijing, Washington D.C. – returning to London in 2015 to report on the UK’s relations with Europe. Then Brexit happened. As a reporter, I’d chronicled the rise of China and India after 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis, but I’d failed to understand how far Britain had been consumed by the forces of populism that have roiled all Western democracies. I’ve spent the last eight years reporting on the fallout, from both sides of the English Channel; trying to unpack what went wrong, and see what we can do about it.
This book by Maria Sobolewska and Rob Ford – two political scientists at Manchester University – is superlative at unpacking the underlying political currents that fuelled the Brexit vote of 2016.
Of course there were lots of immediate factors that led to the vote to leave, but this book puts the underlying Brexit culture war in its historical context, mixing data and polling insights with forensic analysis.
What you start to see is that the decision of both Tory and Labour politicians to weaponise both EU membership and immigration slowly laid the foundations for Brexit to become the lightning rod issue that has set UK politics on fire these last seven years.
Long-term social and demographic changes - and the conflicts they create - continue to transform British politics. In this accessible and authoritative book Sobolewska and Ford show how deep the roots of this polarisation and volatility run, drawing out decades of educational expansion and rising ethnic diversity as key drivers in the emergence of new divides within the British electorate over immigration, identity and diversity. They argue that choices made by political parties from the New Labour era onwards have mobilised these divisions into politics, first through conflicts over immigration, then through conflicts over the European Union, culminating in the…
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