Search

The West and China Since 1500 surveys Western relations with and attitudes towards China since sustained contact and desirable trading began with the great alternative culture in the sixteenth century. The experiences of traders, diplomats and missionaries are surveyed and illustrated by frequent quotations from contemporary sources. In addition the book explores the flow of cultural influences in both directions, and changes in Western opinion about China from admired model, to disdained'land of the eternal standstill', to feared resurgent power. Finally, the author examines current issues in dispute such as Taiwan and human rights.

Nigel J. Ashton analyses Anglo-American relations during a crucial phase of the Cold War. He argues that although policy-makers on both sides of the Atlantic used the term'interdependence'to describe their relationship this concept had different meanings in London and Washington. The Kennedy Administration sought more centralized control of the Western alliance, whereas the Macmillan Government envisaged an Anglo-American partnership. This gap in perception gave rise to a'crisis of interdependence'during the winter of 1962-3, encompassing issues as diverse as the collapse of the British EEC application, the civil war in the Yemen, the denouement of the Congo crisis and the fate of the British independent nuclear deterrent.

This collection of essays by an international team of experts, explores the wideranging impact of Renaissance humanism on sixteenth century England. Investigating areas as diverse as art, education, religion, political thought, literature and science, the book offers fresh and challenging accounts of prominent Tudor figures such as Thomas More, William Tyndale and John Foxe. As well as historiographical overviews of the subject and a discussion of the fifteenth century background to Tudor developments, one of the book's central themes is the nature of England's fundamental cultural experiences in relation to continental Europe.

By scrutinizing the major Victorian political thinkers'perceptions and representations of France this book shows how comparisons with the country on the other side of the Channel, its politics, civilization, and the French'national character'contributed to nineteenth-century Britain's self-definition. While the utterances on France of several other figures are also examined, the main focus is on Walter Bagehot, John Stuart Mill, Matthew Arnold, Lord Acton, Thomas Carlyle, Nassau William Senior, James Fitzjames Stephen, William Rathbone Greg, Thomas Babington Macaulay, John Morley, and Frederic Harrison.

This pioneering collection of essays by Japanese, British and Canadian scholars demonstrates how individuals, government agencies and non-governmental organizations have confirmed and challenged the ideas of diplomats and statesmen. Case studies of mutual perceptions, feminism, ceremonial, theatre, economic and social thought, fine arts, broadcasting, labour and missionary activity all illustrate how varieties of nationalism and internationalism have shaped the development of Anglo-Japanese relations. Furthermore it reveals the British admiration of Japan and a desire to emulate Japanese efficiency as a recurring theme in debates on the condition of Britain in the twentieth century.

In the early postwar era, Britain enjoyed a very close economic relationship with Australia and New Zealand through their common membership of the Sterling Area and the Commonwealth Preference Area. This book examines the breakdown of this relationship in the 1950 and 1960s. Britain and Australasia were driven apart by disputes over industrial protection, agriculture, capital supplies, and relations with other countries. Special emphasis is given to the implications for Australia and New Zealand of Britain's growing interest in European integration.

Disraeli claimed that no country suffered more from the foundation of the German Reich than England. Bismarck's empire of 1871 did not, however, strike like a bolt from the blue. The question of German unity had been brewing for decades. Britain and the Germany Question reconstructs the way Victorians pictured the pre-history of the Reich from the July Revolution of 1830 until the eve of the'Wars of German Unification'. It scrutinises how Britain's foreign political establishment - the diplomats, journalists and politicians who informed, determined and executed British foreign policy - analysed and responded to the Germans'search for a reformed, united and powerful nation state. It lays bare British interests, preconceptions and preoccupations and explains what kind of united Germany Britain would have welcomed. The book thus illuminates three themes crucial to our understanding of nineteenth-century Europe: the international repercussions of German nationalism; Britain's attitude to continental politics; and the interlocking of liberalism, nationalism revolution and reform.

Many important lessons have come out of the negotiations for the Belfast Agreement. This book explains how public opinion polls were used in support of the Northern Ireland peace process. Significantly, it was the politicians who decided the questions so that they could map out areas of compromise and common ground that their supporters would accept. This book explains how the work was done so that others can apply the benefits of this experience to their own peace building activities.

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the emergence, consolidation and development of the Irish women's movement, as a social movement, in the course of the twentieth century. It seek to address several lacunae in Irish studies by illuminating the processes through which the movement and, in particular, networks of constituent organisations, came to fruition as agencies of social change. The central argument advanced is that when viewed historically, the Irish women's movement is characterised by its interconnectedness and continuity: the central tensions, themes and organising strategies of the movement connects diverse organisations and constituencies, over time and space. This book will be essential reading for those interested in Irish studies, sociology, history, women's studies, and politics.

In this work, Antony Alcock recounts the historical development of Europe from the Greek city states through to the 2000 Nice Treaty on European Integration and the attack on New York of 11 September 2001. This Short History of Europe is told simply and accessibly, yet provides the political, economic, social and cultural context for Europe's increasing integration, based on the three pillars of Greek political thought, Roman law and the Christian religion, including analysis of new material, Antony Alcock brings his history fully up-to-date looking at such issues as the collapse of Yugoslavia, immigration and asylum seekers and finally consideration of the future of Europe in the twenty first century.

This volume is concerned with the development of business and economic relations between Britain and Japan from the early seventeenth century up to the late twentieth century. Particular attention is given to commodity trade, capital flows, the transfer of knowledge and the overall balance of economic power between the two nations. Mutual perceptions of economic strengths and weaknesses are also considered, and the economic relationship located in the broader context of political and strategic interaction.

A new single volume history of the Communist Party of Great Britain examining the party from its foundations in 1920 to its demise in the early 1990s. Drawing on original research and a reading of specialist texts, the authors analyze the rise and fall of the party and evaluate its role on the left of British politics. Whilst sympathetic to the ideals and commitment of many British communist activists, the book is sharply critical of much of the actual practice of the party.

In one of the more sudden shifts of perspective, and hotly contested controversies of recent historical and literary scholarship, our view of Johnson has been fundamentally changed. This volume offers the best up-to-the-moment account of what has been achieved, and points to the new directions in which scholarship is developing. It will be essential reading for all concerned with eighteenth-century studies.

This open access book provides the first critical history of the controversy over whether to cull wild badgers to control the spread of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in British cattle. This question has plagued several professional generations of politicians, policymakers, experts and campaigners since the early 1970s. Questions of what is known, who knows, who cares, who to trust and what to do about this complex problem have been the source of scientific, policy, and increasingly vociferous public debate ever since. This book integrates contemporary history, science and technology studies, human-animal relations, and policy research to conduct a cross-cutting analysis. It explores the worldviews of those involved with animal health, disease ecology and badger protection between the 1970s and 1990s, before reintegrating them to investigate the recent public polarisation of the controversy. Finally it asks how we might move beyond the current impasse.

This open access book explores the question of who or what ‘the public’ is within ‘public health’ in post-war Britain. Drawing on historical research on the place of the public in public health in Britain from the establishment of the National Health Service in 1948, the book presents a new perspective on the relationship between state and citizen. Focusing on health education, health surveys, heart disease and the development of vaccination policy and practice, the book establishes that ‘the public’ was not one thing but many. It considers how public health policy makers and practitioners imagined the public or publics. These publics were not mere constructions; they had agency and the ability to ‘speak back’ to public health. The nature of publicness changed during the latter half of the twentieth century, and this book argues that the relationship between the public and public health offers a powerful lens through which to examine such shifts.

This book provides a new interpretation of the economic dimension of the Cold War. It examines Anglo-American trade diplomacy towards the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe from the late 1940s to the early 1960s. The book, which is based on research in American and British archives, presents new evidence to suggest that Anglo-American relations in East-West trade were characterised by friction and conflict as the two countries clashed over divergent commercial and strategic perceptions of the Soviet Union.

While there are many works on British liberalism, this is the first to deal substantially with the transatlantic and international content of liberalism. Gerlach considers the transatlantic thought of prominent contemporary figures such as William Gladstone, John Morley, William Harcourt and Andrew Carnegie. A fascinating account that paves the way for the political and social rapprochement of the twentieth century.

New research by several leading political historians creates a detailed and diverse study of Anglo-American relations in the twentieth century. Declassified documents provide unique insight into the personal relationships between Eisenhower and Eden, and Lyndon Johnson and Harold Wilson. This volume offers a breadth of scholarship drawn from three continents and examines the diplomatic negotiations, powerful personalities and political considerations at the heart of British-American affairs.

This volume challenges many widely held beliefs about the efficacy of the London Charity Organization Society. Politicians, social administrators, sociologists, economists, biographers and historians have been swayed by the strength of their propaganda. The Charity Organization Society continues to be used as an institutional model to illustrate the alleged advantages of voluntarism over state benefits. Poor Relief and Charity 1869-1945 exposes the misleading nature of many of its claims. It explains why they were shunned by other charities, treated with suspicion by parish clergy, disregarded by poor law guardians and seen as little different from the stigmatized poor law by those in need.

For thirty years the Labour Party was wracked by conflict over membership of the European Community, swinging back and forth, pro and anti, when in and out of office. It was a conflict that helped keep the party in opposition for eighteen years until it abandoned its socialist basis under New Labour. The author as journalist and European Union official knew many of the major and minor players and brings this experience to bear.

Enlightenment Geography is the first detailed study of the politics of British geography books and of related forms of geographical knowledge in the period from 1650 to 1850. The definition and role of geography in a humanist structure of knowledge are examined and shown to tie it to political discourse. Geographical works are shown to have developed Whig and Tory defences of the English church and state, consonant with the conservatism of the English Enlightenment. These politicizations were questioned by those indebted to the Scottish Enlightenment. Enlightenment Geography questions broad assumptions about British intellectual history through a revisionist history of geography.

The relationship between Britain and Greece, situated at the opposite ends of Europe has been close and troubled, especially since the emergence of Greece as an independent state in the 1830s. The essays in this book, some previously unpublished, focus on aspects of British-Greek relations, military, diplomatic and academic, during the twentieth-century. A particular area of interest is the Second World War, when British involvement in Greek affairs reached it climax, just before she surrendered her role as Greece's principal external patron to the United States.

Britain's famous overseas civil services - the Colonial Administrative Service, the Indian Civil Service and the Sudan Political Service - no longer exist as a major and sought-after career for Britain's graduates. In this detailed study the history of each service is presented within the framework of the need to administer an expanding empire. Close attention is paid to the methods of recruitment and training and to the socio-educational background of the overseas administrators as well as to the nature of their work. The prestigious incumbents of Government House are revealingly examined. The impact of decolonisation on overseas officials and the kinds of'second careers'which they took up are documented. This authoritative narrative history is enlivened by recourse to Service lore and anecdotes.

The spectre of revolution and the nature of radicalism in Britain from the late eighteenth century through to the age of the Chartists has for some time engaged the interest of scholars and been the topic of much debate. This book honours one of the subject's most renowned and respected historians, Professor Malcolm I. Thomis. In a collection distinguished by its formidable range of contributors, a series of stimulating essays explores and re-examines the threats and ideas of revolution and the byzantine networks and character of British radical culture in the turbulent and intriguing years between 1775 and 1848.

Labour's 1997 victory was widely credited to the party's reinvention of itself as New Labour. This book argues that the transformation of the Labour Party is best understood as the product of Thatcherism, and marks the emergence of a new consensus in British politics.

This highly readable and up-to-date history provides an informative critique of the causes and consequences of the modern agricultural revolution, since the agricultural depression of the inter-war period. This includes evaluating the impact of the Second World War, the post-war scientific and technological revolutions and the metamorphosis in the role of the state. It also examines the impact of the Common Agricultural Policy and the more recent attempts to rationalize production. The book provides the essential background for an objective appreciation of modern agricultural development.

In the eighteenth century'virtue'was a word to conjure with. It called to mind heroic predecessors from the Roman Republic such as Cato and Brutus and invoked qualities of personal integrity, selflessness and a concern for the common good, which, though urgently needed, seemed desperately lacking, both in the ruthless party struggles of the age of Anne and subsequently in the all-pervading political corruption of the Walpole administration. When the longed-for political saviour failed to materialize it was increasingly felt that if virtue existed at all then it would have to be sought for among the lower orders of society or else in provincial areas, where simpler and nobler values might still prevail. But with the coming of the French Revolution and Romanticism virtue began to lose its powerful resonances - it now seemed naive and simplistic, all too ready to deny both the complexities of human nature and the possibility of determination by external cultural forces.

The French North African Crisis analyses the postwar breakdown in French imperial rule in North West Africa, concentrating primarily upon the Algerian war of independence. The book highlights the human tragedy involved and the divisive consequences within French metropolitan politics of intractable colonial conflict. It further examines how far the protracted crisis of colonial control in North Africa shaped French foreign and security policy and this impacted upon Anglo-French relations, the western alliance and the wider process of decolonization.

The experience of one region over 25 years within the European Union forms the basis of an examination of how the EU impacts on a region's economy, on its society and on its particular problems. In the case of Northern Ireland, inclusion in the European Union has coincided with the most sustained campaign of political terrorism in western Europe.

The origins of the Second World War remain clouded in Churchillian mythology. Sixty years on, Peter Neville's controversial book provides an essential reassessment of the appeasement myths by examining a central yet understudied figure. Sir Nevile Henderson has been vilified as'our Nazi Ambassador in Berlin'by historians and popular memory alike. He has remained in disgrace despite the widespread historical rethinking of appeasement in recent years. Yet there has never before been a book-length study of Henderson despite his central role as Britain's Ambassador. Peter Neville's important reassessment draws upon primary documents to overturn orthodox interpretations. While Henderson's analysis of the Nazi regime was seriously flawed, history has vastly overstated his influence. In presenting the first full and close analysis of what Henderson himself called'the failure of a mission', the author has made a pathbreaking contribution to the history of appeasement.

This book is about continuity and change in early nineteenth-century Britain. Against the background of an emerging industrial state, the popularization of liberal laissez-faire principles and the rise of a class-based society, it examines the revival of traditional paternal ideals and considers their influence upon the development of social policy. The poor laws, social distress, child labour and factory reform provide a focus for the analysis. The implications of the revival for the emergence of the collective or welfare state is an important theme.

An increased awareness of the importance of minority and subjugated voices to the histories and narratives which have previously excluded them has led to a wide-spread interest in the effects of colonization and displacement. This collection of essays is the first to apply post-colonial theory to the Middle Ages, and to critique that theory through the excavation of a distant past. The essays examine the establishment of colony, empire, and nationalism in order to expose the mechanisms of oppression through which'aboriginal''native'or simply pre-existent cultures are displaced, eradicated, or transformed.

Anglo-American rivalry in Egypt, Iran and the Persian Gulf in the period 1952 to 1957 represented the transfer of power in the Middle East from Great Britain to the United States. As Britain's influence in Egypt and Iran declined, its determination to hold on to the Persian Gulf increased, at one point threatening to kill any Americans found in the hotly contested Buraimi oasis. The episode is little examined by historians but played a large role in the ensuing Suez crisis.

The Political-Diplomatic Dimension, 1600-1930, consists of parallel essays by Japanese and British academic specialists covering comprehensively the history of relations between Japan and Britain from the first contacts in the seventeenth century to the present. This study, and its companion, Volume 2, demonstrates that, in the political-diplomatic sphere, while there have been periods of serious disagreement, there has been on the whole a relationship of harmony and mutual understanding.

The book examines the evolution and current significance of the parading tradition in Ireland. Since 1995, confrontations over parades have existed side by side with the Northern Ireland peace process. The most bitter of these have occurred over the Drumcree church parade at Portadown and the Relief of Derry parades. Using a range of historical and anthropological perspectives, the book traces the parading tradition from the seventeenth century to the present.

World War II threw Britain and the Soviet Union together as unlikely allies. This book examines British policy-makers'attitudes to cooperation with the USSR and shows how views of internal developments in the USSR and of Stalin himself influenced Churchill, the War Cabinet and the Foreign Office to believe that long-term collaboration was a desirable and achievable goal. In particular, it was assumed that a shared concern to prevent future German aggression would be a lasting bond. Such attitudes significantly shaped Britain's wartime policy towards the USSR, and for many individuals, including Churchill, played a more important role than their long-standing anti-Communist attitudes.

James VI and I was the most prominent homosexual figure in the early modern period. Young has amassed the evidence surrounding James and related it to the larger history of homosexuality. The result is a synthesis of old and new history that illuminates Jacobean politics and challenges many current assumptions about effeminacy, manliness, sodomy, sexual constructs and sexual discourse before the eighteenth century.

The book studies the Anglo-American debate in which British officials led by Lord Hailey, countered American criticisms of imperial rule by emphasizing economic development and peace-keeping as new, non-racial justifications for western authority. These are themes that have retained a powerful resonance in the post-war world.

Crisis and Consensus in British Politics focuses on the collapse of the post-war consensus in the mid 1970s crisis and the emergence of a new consensus in the 1990s. It follows this process through six key policy areas including civil service reform, privatisation, macro-economic management and relations with Europe. It is designed for students following courses in modern history, politics and public policy as well as general readers with an interest in current affairs.

Despite the Second World War and the Holocaust, postwar Britain was not immune to fascism. By 1948, a large and confident fascist movement had been established, with a strong network of local organisers and public speakers, and an audience of thousands. However, within two years the fascists had collapsed under the pressure of a successful anti-fascist campaign. This book explains how it was that fascism could grow so fast, and how it then went into decline.

The relationship of policy to strategy is a central issue in international studies. Using the little-known but highly relevant example of British planning for the occupation in 1945, the book provides a case-study in the practicalities of'liberating'enemy territory. It looks at the way in which policy was developed and then reconciled with those of her Allies; how negotiations were directly affected by the existing - and expected - strategic situation; and how the military were involved in the reconstruction of Austria.

This volume sets out to examine the history of Ireland in the years following the Dail's ratification of independence from Britain in 1922. The different authors in the collection, all experts on different aspects of Irish history from the first half of the twentieth century, focus on a wide range of different themes. Considerations of the decline of Redmondite nationalism, the role of Unionism in the Free State, Party structures and organisation, the development of different forms of identity, the nature of economics and the place of the newly independent Ireland within the British Empire are all included. All chapters are either the result of new archival research or else offer a sustained historiographical critique of current thinking.

St Antony's College, Oxford, was founded by Antonin Besse and opened its doors in October 1950. Under the inspired leadership of William Deakin, the College became a centre for postgraduate teaching and research in the social sciences. The most deliberately international of all Oxford colleges, it was also the first to admit substantial numbers of women. This book recounts the College's history and describes the changing lifestyle of its students over the last fifty years.

Why, despite the appalling conditions in the trenches of the Western Front, was the British army almost untouched by major mutiny during the First World War? Drawing upon an extensive range of sources, including much previously unpublished archival material, G. D. Sheffield seeks to answer this question by examining a crucial but previously neglected factor in the maintenance of the British army's morale in the First World War: the relationship between the regimental officer and the ordinary soldier.

History; Social history; Great Britain—History; Europe—History—1492-; Social policy; Childhood; Adolescence

This open access book is the culmination of many years of research on what happened to the bodies of executed criminals in the past. Focusing on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it looks at the consequences of the 1752 Murder Act. These criminal bodies had a crucial role in the history of medicine, and the history of crime, and great symbolic resonance in literature and popular culture. Starting with a consideration of the criminal corpse in the medieval and early modern periods, chapters go on to review the histories of criminal justice, of medical history and of gibbeting under the Murder Act, and ends with some discussion of the afterlives of the corpse, in literature, folklore and in contemporary medical ethics. Using sophisticated insights from cultural history, archaeology, literature, philosophy and ethics as well as medical and crime history, this book is a uniquely interdisciplinary take on a fascinating historical phenomenon.

This open access book surveys drinking in Britain between the Licensing Act of 1869 and the wartime regulations imposed on alcohol production and consumption after 1914. This was a period marked by the expansion of the drink industry and by increasingly restrictive licensing laws. Politics and commerce co-existed with moral and medical concerns about drunkenness and combined, these factors pushed alcohol consumers into the public spotlight. Through an analysis of public and private records, medical texts and sociological studies, the book investigates the reasons why Victorians and Edwardians consumed alcohol in the ways that they did and explores the ideas about alcohol that circulated in the period. This book shows that they had many reasons for purchasing and consuming alcoholic substances and these were driven by broader social, cultural, medical and commercial factors. Although drunkenness may have been the most visible consequence of alcohol consumption, it was not the only type of drinking behaviour. Alcohol played an important social role in the everyday lives of Victorians and Edwardians where its consumption held many different meanings.

This book is the first on the creation, development and influence of popular politics, specifically the role of Political Unions, on the Great Reform Act of 1832. Political Unions and the force of public opinion played a vital role in seeing the Reform Bill through Parliament and setting England on the path of peaceful, legislative reform. Their emphasis on representing the'industrious'classes linked the Unions to the emerging debates - political and socio-economic - in later Victorian Britain and the evolution of British participatory democracy.

John Fisher, 1469-1535 was a figure of European stature during the Tudor age. His many roles included those of bishop, humanist, theologian, cardinal, and ultimately martyr. This study places him in the context of sixteenth-century Christendom, focusing not just on his resistance to Henry VIII, but also on his active engagement with the renaissance and reformation.

Spies and Saboteurs is the story of the origins of the Anglo-American'Special Relationship'in human intelligence collection and special operations, which took place amidst the global conflagration that was the Second World War. It is the story of William'Wild Bill'Donovan - the father of America's Central Intelligence Agency - and of his relationship with legendary British spymasters like William Stephenson, code named'Intrepid', Stewart Menzies ('C'), chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, Admiral John Godfrey, the powerful and enigmatic director of Naval Intelligence, and General Colin Gubbins, Britain's master saboteur. Relying almost exclusively upon recently declassified OSS and British intelligence documents and survivor interviews, it examines the transatlantic association in espionage and sabotage, guerrilla warfare and disinformation. It explores the evolution of covert relations from a'tutorial'arrangement with the U.S. as pupil, to an unequal then full partnership, and ultimately to competition and rivalry in the prosecution of the clandestine war.