Nineteenth-Century Britain: A Very Short Introduction

by Harvie, Christopher; Matthew, H. C. G.

• ISBN13: 9780192853981
• ISBN10: 0192853988
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-08-11
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

First published as part of the best-selling The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, Christopher Harvie and Colin Matthew's Very Short Introduction to Nineteenth-Century Britain is a sharp but subtle account of remarkable economic and social change and an even more remarkable politicalstability. Britain in 1789 was overwhelmingly rural, agrarian, multilingual, and almost half Celtic. By 1914, when it faced its greatest test since the defeat of Napoleon, it was largely urban and English. Christopher Harvie and Colin Matthew show the forces behind Britain's rise to its imperialzenith, and the continuing tensions within the nations and classes of the 'union state'.

Author Biography

Christopher Harvie is Professor of British and Irish Studies at Tubingen in Germany. Colin Matthew is editor of the Gladstone Diaries and author of an award-winning life of the Victorian statesman.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. xi
List of Maps	p. xiii
Reflections on the Revolutions	p. 1
Industrial Development	p. 9
Reform and Religion	p. 18
The Wars Abroad	p. 22
Roads to Freedom	p. 30
Coping with Reform	p. 35
'Unless the Lord Build the City...'	p. 41
'The Ringing Grooves of Change'	p. 48
Politics and Diplomacy: Palmerston's Years	p. 54
Incorporation	p. 59
Free Trade: An Industrial Economy Rampant	p. 64
A Shifting Population: Town and Country	p. 77
The Masses and the Classes: The Urban Worker	p. 86
Clerks and Commerce: The Lower Middle Class	p. 94
The Propertied Classes	p. 97
Pomp and Circumstance	p. 101
'A Great Change in Manners'	p. 105
'Villa Tories': The Conservative Resurgence	p. 107
Ireland, Scotland, Wales: Home Rule Frustrated	p. 112
Reluctant Imperialists?	p. 118
The Fin-de-Siecle Reaction: New Views of the State	p. 125
Old Liberalism, New Liberalism, Labourism, and Tariff Reform	p. 131
Edwardian Years: A Crisis of the State Contained	p. 136
'Your English Summer's Done'	p. 143
Further Reading	p. 147
Chronology	p. 153
Prime Ministers 1789-1914	p. 159
Index	p. 161
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