A critical introduction to the mass political movements that came of age in urban England between the Great Reform Act of 1832 and the start of World War One. Roberts provides a guide to the new approaches to topics such as Chartism, parliamentary reform, Gladstonian Liberalism, popular Conservatism and the independent Labour movement.
Written by an experienced and renowned textbook author, this book examines all the major themes, personalities and issues of this important period in a clear and digestible form.
The remarkable popularity of political likenesses in the Victorian period is the central theme of this book, which explores how politicians and publishers exploited new visual technology to appeal to a broad public. The first study of the role of commercial imagery in nineteenth-century politics, Politics personified shows how visual images projected a favourable public image of politics and politicians. Drawing on a vast and diverse range of sources, this book highlights how and why politics was visualised. Beginning with an examination of the visual culture of reform, the book goes on to study how Liberals, Conservatives and Radicals used portraiture to connect with supporters, the role of group portraiture, and representations of Victorian MPs. The final part of the book examines how major politicians, including Palmerston, Gladstone and Disraeli, interacted with mass commercial imagery. The book will appeal to a broad range of scholars and students across political, social and cultural history, art history and visual studies, cultural and media studies and literature.
The Rise and Fall of Radical Westminster, 1780-1890 explores a critical chapter in the story of Britain's transition to democracy. Utilising the remarkably rich documentation generated by Westminster elections, Baer reveals how the most radical political space in the age of oligarchy became the most conservative and tranquil in an age of democracy.
Much scholarship on nineteenth-century English workers has been devoted to the radical reform politics that powerfully unsettled the social order in the century’s first decades. Comparatively neglected have been the impetuous patriotism, royalism, and xenophobic anti-Catholicism that countless men and women demonstrated in the early Victorian period. This much-needed study of the era’s “conservatism from below” explores the role of religion in everyday culture and the Tories’ successful mobilization across class boundaries. Long before they were able to vote, large swathes of the lower classes embraced Britain’s monarchical, religious, and legal institutions in the defense of traditional English culture.
A bold re-interpretation of democracy's historical rise in Europe, Ziblatt highlights the surprising role of conservative political parties with sweeping implications for democracy today.
A comprehensible and accessible portrait of the various 'languages' which shaped public life in nineteenth century Britain, covering key themes such as governance, statesmanship, patriotism, economics, religion, democracy, women's suffrage, Ireland and India.
