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A New England?
Peace and War 1886-1918
G. R. Searle
976 pages
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16 pp halftone plates
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234x156mm
978-0-19-928440-5
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Paperback
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28 July 2005
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- A vivid panorama of every aspect of life in England - including politics, religion, high and low culture, education, science, and war
- A period of immense historical interest, importance, and change
- A unique scope, from the height of Victoria's empire right through to the end of the First World War
G. R. Searle's absorbing narrative history breaks conventional chronological barriers to carry the reader from England in 1886, the apogee of the Victorian era with the nation poised to celebrate the empress queen's golden jubilee, to 1918, as the 'war to end all wars' drew to a close leaving England to come to term with its price - above all in terms of human life, but also in the general sense that things would never be the same again.
This was an age of extremes: a period of imperial pomp and circumstance, with a political elite preoccupied with display and ceremony, alongside the growing cult of the simple life; the zenith of imperialism with its idealization of war on the one hand, the start of the Labour Party, a socialist
renaissance, and welfare politics on the other; and a radical challenging of traditional gender stereotypes in the face of the prevailing cult of masculinity.
Under Professor Searle's historical microscope, all the details of daily life spring into sharp relief. Half-forgotten figures such as Edward Carpenter, Vesta Tilley, and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman take their place on stage beside Oscar Wilde, the Pankhursts, and Lloyd George. Motoring and aviation, to become such an intrinsic part of life within the next decades, had their beginnings in this period as pastimes for the rich.
From the wretched slums of England's great cities to their bustling docks and factories, from the grand portals of Westminster to the violent political challenges
of the Ulster Unionists and the militant suffrage movement, from Blackpool's tower and beach packed with holidaymakers to the trenches of the Western Front, the energy, creativity, and often destructive turmoil of the years 1886-1918 are brought into focus in this magisterial history.
THE NEW OXFORD HISTORY OF ENGLAND
The aim of the New Oxford History of England is to give an account of the development of the country over time. It is hard to treat that development as just the history which unfolds within the precise boundaries of England, and a mistake to suggest that this implies a neglect of the histories of the Scots, Irish, and Welsh. Yet the institutional core of the story which runs from Anglo-Saxon times to our own is the story of a
state-structure built round the English monarchy and its effective successor, the Crown in Parliament. While the emphasis of individual volumes in the series will vary, the ultimate outcome is intended to be a set of standard and authoritative histories, embodying the scholarship of a generation. Readership: Readers interested in history, especially in the Victorian and Edwardian eras and the First World War; scholars and students of modern British history.
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G. R. Searle, Emeritus Professor of History, University of East Anglia
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Review(s) from previous edition
"This book deserves to become a standard work. It is reliable, lucid, even-handed and up-to-date...Nowhere has Edwardian social history been so revealingly synthesised. - The Spectator
"A masterful, lucidly written and well proportioned survey over the whole range of national life." - Paul Smith, Times Literary Supplement
"This is a marvellous book in its breadth, its comprehensiveness and, given its length, the enormous pleasure it has been to read. Necessarily a work of synthesis, it efficiently weaves together telling quotes, examples and statistics to conjure up the late Victorian and Edwardian world." - Peter Catterall, History Today
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Introduction
Part I. England in 1886
1: Nationalism and Nationality
2: Generation and Gender
3: Social Identities: Class, Community, and the Masses
4: Governance and Politics
Part II. Late Victorian England 1886-1899
5: Home Rule and the Politics of Unionism
6: The Social Question: Conflict and Stability, 1886-1899
7: Politics and the Social Question, 1886-1899
8: Uneasy Dominion: Britain under Challenge, 1886-1899
9: The Boer War, 1899-1902
Part III. Edwardian England
10: The Unionist Project, 1902-1905
11: The Liberal Party and Social Welfare Politics
12: The Years of 'Crisis', 1908-1914
13: The Road to War
Part IV. Leisure, Culture, and Science
14: The Pursuit of Pleasure
15: Art and Culture
16: Science and Learning
Part V. The Great War
17: The Great War: The Loss of Innocence, 1914-1916
18: The Great War: Tragedy and Triumph, 1916-1918
19: The Patriotic Experience
20: War and the Reshaping of Identities
Chronology
List of Cabinets
General Elections
Bibliography
Index
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The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.
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