How did Britain's power and influence decline? Seeking to answer this question, this book begins with the reign of Edward VII, when Great Britain commanded the mightiest empire in the world. It ends with the Coronation of Elizabeth II, when Britain emerged victorious from a world war, but ruined as a world power.
In The Age of Revolution, Eric Hobsbawm focuses on the tumultuous late 18th and early 19th centuries. He argues that the "dual revolutions" of the time -the French Revolution and the British Industrial Revolution - changed the way the whole world thought about politics and power, and fundamentally shaped the modern era.
Slavery had been accepted in Western culture for centuries. So why did a movement suddenly rise up in the industrial era calling for its abolition? Could it be that people had suddenly become more enlightened and humanitarian? Or were there other, more compelling and perhaps self-serving reasons for this sudden about-turn?
William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1898)), four times Prime Minister and MP for sixty-three years, was one of the greatest British statesmen. He was remarkable not only for the political impact he had on Victorian England but also for his complex personality. This book talks about his life.
Presents an account of the development of Europe since 1870. This title provides coverage that ranges from one country to another, making comparisons along the way, and focusing on intellectual and social trends as well as political developments.
From the writer of the Radio 4 "Sceptred Isle" series, this volume observes Britain over the last 100 years. It provides a comprehensive and entertaining overview of key political, cultural and economic events as well as highlighting scientific innovations.
This is the biography of one of the ugliest men of his age. But John Wilkes (1727-97) claimed that half an hour of his conversation would cause men, and especially women, to forget his looks. He was a radical Whig politician, expelled from the House of Commons, who invigorated popular radicalism.
A resource for students and teachers, this book gives its readers a firm grounding in 19th- and 20th-century French history and culture. It focuses on iconic moments in history rather than straightforward chronological narrative as a base from which to launch more specialized interests.
From William Shakespeare to Winston Churchill, the "Very Interesting People" series provides bite-sized biographies of Britain's most fascinating historical figures. Each book in the series is based upon the biographical entry from the world-famous "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". This title talks about Benjamin Disraeli.
From William Shakespeare to Winston Churchill, the "Very Interesting People" series provides bite-sized biographies of Britain's most fascinating historical figures. Each book in the series is based upon the biographical entry from the world-famous "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". This title talks about Christopher Wren.
Paul Levy, editor of Strachey's correspondence, writes the introduction and the book carries a foreword by the last of the great Bloomsbury Group, Frances Partridge.
Planned with the A-level student specifically in mind, the "Access to History" series is designed to be expansive enough so that re-reading of condensed narrative is not required. This book looks at the unification of Italy (1815-70).
Part of the "Access to History" series, this book examines the rise and fall of Napoleon and the effect of his rule, both long and short term, on France and the rest of Europe. An analytical approach is taken to how and why Napoleon gained control in France and how and why he was finally defeated.
This book is an authoritative inquiry into some of the most turbulent events in the history of Eastern Europe. By considering three key themes: modernism, nationalism and empire, Armour analyzes how the foundations of nationalism developed from within an environment of widespread social turmoil.
This work gives a compelling account of the officer who waged the intelligence battle against Napoleon's army, a forerunner to the great code-breakers of the 20th century. George Scovell used Spanish guerillas to capture coded French messages, and then set to work decrypting them.
Anne Clifford describes the dramatic and tragic events of her life in the seventeenth century. Of how she danced in the masques of Inigo Jones, experienced both joy and abuse in her two marriages, lost and gained an inheritance, and successfully defended her rights against kings and armies. All told in rich detail amidst the backdrop of daily life. -- .
The industrial revolution stands out as a key event not simply in British history, but in world history, ushering in as it did a new era of sustained economic prosperity.
The young George III was a poignant figure, humdrum on the surface yet turbulent beneath: hiding his own passions, he tried hard to be a father to his siblings and his nation.
This book explores the theory and practice of cultural exchange between Britain and the Continent during the years 1660-1815. How are the "foreign" and the "other" produced in the process of cultural transfer?
An international trade emerged between 1870-1895 that incorporated the circulation of books among countries worldwide. A history of the social network and select agents who sold and distributed books overseas, this study demonstrates agents increasingly thought of the world as a negotiable, connected system and books as transnational commodities.
The story of Isandlwana, the battle that shocked the British empire at its zenith, and Rorke's Drift, which immediately followed it and went some way to restoring wounded British pride: how they were fought, how they have been remembered, and what they mean for us today.
New B-format paperback - Alexander III called Victoria 'a pampered, sentimental, selfish old woman,' while to her he was a sovereign whom she could not regard as a gentleman. But the Queen's son and two of her granddaughters married Romanovs.
Pauper policies examines how policies under the old and New Poor Laws were conceived, adopted, implemented, developed or abandoned. This fresh perspective reveals significant aspects of poor law history which have been overlooked by scholars. -- .
Charts the transformation in the way people thought about democracy in the North Atlantic region in the years between the American Revolution and the revolutions of 1848.
Inferior Politics explores how social policy was created in Britain in a period when central government was not active in making it. Despite the lack of consensus, there was a lively and inclusive 'politics' of social policy-making, in which 'inferior' officers of government (what we might call 'local authorities') figured prominently.
This book revisits Britain's much-studied 'age of reform', before and after the Great Reform Act of 1832, showing that 'reformers' hoped to reform not only parliament, government, the law and the Church but also, for example, medicine and the theatre. A substantial introduction provides an overview of the period.
Focusing on the words and experiences of the poor themselves, this book rewrites our understanding of English social policy for the period from the 1750s to 1830s.
This book represents the first attempt to identify and describe a workhouse reform 'movement' in mid- to late-nineteenth-century England, beyond the obvious candidates of the Workhouse Visiting Society and the voices of popular critics such as Charles Dickens and Florence Nightingale.
This book explores the medical world of the poor and the Old Poor Law in the period 1750-1834. Encountering the sick poor in their own words and everyday situations, I offer a new and more positive view of English welfare. -- .