This book explores the recreation and subsequent development of the British Monarchy during the twentieth century. Contributors examine the phenomenon of modern monarchy through an exploration of the establishment and the continuing impact of the Windsor dynasty both within Britain and the wider world, to interrogate the reasons for its survival into the twenty-first century. The successes (and failures) of the dynasty and the implications of these for its long-term survival are assessed f...

In 1850 the Industrial Revolution came to an end. In 1851 the Great Exhibition illustrated to the whole world the supremacy of industrial England. For the next twenty years Britain reigned supreme. From around 1870 Britain began to decline. Britain is now a second rate power with strong memories of its former supremacy. The above five sentences summarise a common view of the sequencing of Britain’s rise and relative fall, a stereotype that is challenged and modified in the essays of The Go...

Both the Victorian age and the late twentieth century are often characterised by contemporaries as times of apparent economic affluence and stability. They are often depicted as periods that shared a conviction that the stability of society, including its affluence, was threatened by the activities of social deviants. These essays aim to examine crime of a socially visible nature, in the context of social panic and moral outrage in both the Victorian period and the late twentieth century. ...

This volume challenges the traditional view that the First World War represents a pivotal turning point in the long history of monarchy, suggesting the picture is significantly more complex. Using a comparative approach, it explores the diverse roles played by monarchs during the Great War, and how these met the expectations of the monarchic institution in different states at a time of such crisis. Its contributors not only explore less familiar narratives, including the experiences of mon...

Throughout the nineteenth century and twentieth century, various attempts were made to define and control problematic behaviour in public by legal and legislative means through the use of a somewhat nebulous concept of ‘indecency’. Remarkably however, public indecency remains a much under-researched aspect of English legal, social and criminal justice history.Covering a period of just over a century, from 1857 (the date of the passing of the first Obscene Publications Act) to 1960 ...

The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 is one of the most important pieces of social legislation ever enacted. Its principles and the workhouse system dominated attitudes to welfare provision for the next 80 years. This new Seminar Study explores the changing ideas to poverty over this period and assesses current debates on Victorian attitudes to the poor. David Englander reviews the old system of poor relief; he considers how the New Poor Law was enacted and received and looks at how...

This is Volume II of twenty-eight in a series on the Sociology of Education. Originally published in 1958, this is a comparative study of adult education in that starts with a historical review of the provision in England before 1850, between the Wars and beyond as well as delving into the characterises and personality of the adult student. The author’s travels to the United States, Germany, the West Indies, Australia, the Middle East, Scandinavia, India, China and East Africa extends the ...

The United Kingdom; Great Britain; the British Isles; the Home Nations: such a wealth of different names implies uncertainty and contention - and an ability to invent and adjust. In a year that sees a Scottish referendum on independence, Linda Colley analyses some of the forces that have unified Britain in the past.She examines the mythology of Britishness, and how far - and why - it has faded. She discusses the Acts of Union with Wales, Scotland and Ireland, and their limitations,...

Sexual harassment, domestic violence and date rape had not been named, although they certainly existed, when Damned Whores and God's Police was first published in 1975. That was before the Sex Discrimination Act of 1984 and before large numbers of women became visible in employment, in politics and elsewhere across society. It's hard to imagine an Australia where these abuses were not yet fully understood as obstacles to women's equality, yet that was Australia in 1975.It ...

What options did Paul Bernardo’s lawyer have when his client directed him to retrieve hidden evidence? Where would David Milgaard be today if a lawyer hadn’t doggedly challenged his murder conviction? And what should a defence lawyer do when told her client is a danger to the public?In this equally inspiring and troubling book, leading Canadian legal academics and practising lawyers draw on real-life stories – case studies, biography, and memoir – to examine the tension between eth...

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 political stability. 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 ...

Domesticity is generally treated as an aspect of women’s history. In this fascinating study of the nineteenth-century middle class, John Tosh shows how profoundly men’s lives were conditioned by the Victorian ideal and how they negotiated its many contradictions.Tosh begins by looking at the experience of boyhood, married life, sex, and fatherhood in the early decades of the nineteenth century—illustrated by case studies representing a variety of backgrounds—and then contrasts th...