Subject Essays

The so-called ‘British World’ is a significant concept and topic of controversy in British imperial history. In its divisiveness, it also sheds new light on the political dynamics of empire…

This essay is an introduction to politics in nineteenth-century Scotland and Wales. It surveys major electoral trends and political questions, exploring the reasons for the Liberal party’s dominance. It also…

This essay argues that Britain was generally a conservative force in European diplomacy even while regarding itself as a more liberal polity than any of the other states. It did…

Historians have always known that nineteenth-century British politics was shaped by forces which worked across national boundaries. But there has been relatively little reflection on the wider interpretative consequences of…

It is noteworthy just how often the nineteenth century is still seen as the Liberal century. While this period may have marked the ‘golden age of Liberalism’ in the mid-Victorian…

This essay provides an overview of the ways corruption featured in British politics from the late eighteenth century to the early twentieth. It does so by examining three core areas…

Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776) expounded a clear choice between policies of free trade, which liberalised the economy, emphasising the market and consumer choice, and mercantilism (later protectionism), which looked…

In the eighteenth century, kings expected to govern as well as to reign – to be active participants in the business of government and policymaking. By the early twentieth century,…

This essay argues that the Irish question proved a dominant problem in British politics across the long nineteenth century. It charts this process by focusing on the ways that the…

This essay gives an overview of the trade union, socialist, and political labour movements in Britain from 1848 to 1914, focusing in particular on the ideas, movements, and organisations that…