Download or read book Eminent Victorians on American Democracy written by Frank Prochaska and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-02-02 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eminent Victorians on American Democracy surveys a wide range of British opinion on the United States in the nineteenth century and highlights the views of John Stuart Mill, Walter Bagehot, Sir Henry Maine, and James Bryce, who wrote extensively on American government and society. America was significant to them not only because it was the world's most advanced democracy, but also because it was a political experiment that was seen to anticipate the future of Britain. The Victorians made a memorable contribution to the continuing debate over the character and origins of democracy through their perceptive examination of issues ranging from the US Constitution to its practical application, from the Supreme Court to the party system. Their trenchant commentary punctures several popular American assumptions, not least the idea of 'exceptionalism'. To Victorian commentators, the bonds of kinship, law, and language were of great significance; and while they did not see the United States as having a unique destiny, they rallied to an 'Anglo-American exceptionalism', which reflected their sense of a shared transatlantic history. What distinguishes the Victorian writers was their willingness to examine the US Constitution dispassionately at a time when Americans treated it as a sacred document. Although the United States has changed dramatically since they wrote, much of their commentary remains remarkably prescient, if only because the American government retains so much of its eighteenth-century character. Today, when rival American priesthoods see the Constitution in the light of their particular altars, it is worth revisiting what leading Victorians had to say about it. It may come as a shock to American readers.
Download or read book Eminent Victorians on American Democracy written by F. K. Prochaska and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title surveys a wide range of British opinion on the United States in the 19th century and highlights the views of John Stuart Mill, Walter Bagehot, Sir Henry Maine, and James Bryce who wrote extensively on American government and society.--Résumé de l'éditeur.
Download or read book Eminent Victorians on American Democracy written by Frank Prochaska and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-02-02 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Surveys a wide range of nineteenth-century British opinion on the United States, significant to them not only because it was the world's most advanced democracy, but also because it was a political experiment that was seen to anticipate the future of Britain.
Download or read book Ambivalent Nation written by Hugh Dubrulle and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2018-06-11 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Ambivalent Nation, Hugh Dubrulle explores how Britons envisioned the American Civil War and how these conceptions influenced their discussions about race, politics, society, military affairs, and nationalism. Contributing new research that expands upon previous scholarship focused on establishing British public opinion toward the war, Dubrulle offers a methodical dissection of the ideological forces that shaped that opinion, many of which arose from the complex Anglo-American postcolonial relationship. Britain’s lingering feeling of ownership over its former colony contributed heavily to its discussions of the American Civil War. Because Britain continued to have a substantial material interest in the United States, its writers maintained a position of superiority and authority in respect to American affairs. British commentators tended to see the United States as divided by two distinct civilizations, even before the onset of war: a Yankee bourgeois democracy and a southern oligarchy supported by slavery. They invariably articulated mixed feelings toward both sections, and shortly before the Civil War, the expression of these feelings was magnified by the sudden emergence of inexpensive newspapers, periodicals, and books. The conflicted nature of British attitudes toward the United States during the antebellum years anticipates the ambivalence with which the British reacted to the American crisis in 1861. Britons used prewar stereotypes of northerners and southerners to help explain the course and significance of the conflict. Seen in this fashion, the war seemed particularly relevant to a number of questions that occupied British conversations during this period: the characteristics and capacities of people of African descent, the proper role of democracy in society and politics, the future of armed conflict, and the composition of a durable nation. These questions helped shape Britain’s stance toward the war and, in turn, the war informed British attitudes on these subjects. Dubrulle draws from numerous primary sources to explore the rhetoric and beliefs of British public figures during these years, including government papers, manuscripts from press archives, private correspondence, and samplings from a variety of dailies, weeklies, monthlies, and quarterlies. The first book to examine closely the forces that shaped British public opinion about the Civil War, Ambivalent Nation contextualizes and expands our understanding of British attitudes during this tumultuous period.
Download or read book Victorian Political Culture written by Angus Hawkins and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2015-05-07 with total page 443 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Victorian Britain is often described as an age of dawning democracy and as an exemplar of the modern Liberal state; yet a hereditary monarchy, a hereditary House of Lords, and an established Anglican Church survived as influential aspects of national public life with traditional elites assuming redefined roles. After 1832, constitutional notions of 'mixed government' gradually gave way to the orthodoxy of 'parliamentary government', shaping the function and nature of political parties in Westminster and the constituencies, as well as the relations between them. Following the 1867-8 Reform Acts, national political parties began to replace the premises of 'parliamentary government'. The subsequent emergence of a mass male electorate in the 1880s and 1890s prompted politicians to adopt new language and methods by which to appeal to voters, while enduring public values associated with morality, community and evocations of the past continued to shape Britain's distinctive political culture. This gave a particularly conservative trajectory to the nation's entry into the twentieth century. This study of British political culture from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century examines the public values that informed perceptions of the constitution, electoral activity, party partisanship, and political organization. Its exploration of Victorian views of status, power, and authority as revealed in political language, speeches, and writing, as well as theology, literature, and science, shows how the development of moral communities rooted in readings of the past enabled politicians to manage far-reaching change. This presents a new over-arching perspective on the constitutional and political transformations of the Victorian age.
Download or read book American Sectionalism in the British Mind 1832 1863 written by Peter O'Connor and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2017-11-13 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using an innovative interdisciplinary approach, American Sectionalism in the British Mind, 1832–1863 provides a corrective to simplified interpretations of British attitudes towards the US during the antebellum and early Civil War periods. It explores the many complexities of transatlantic politics and culture and examines developing British ideas about US sectionalism, from the abolition of slavery in the British Empire and the Nullification Crisis in South Carolina (1832/1883) through to the Civil War. It also demonstrates how these pre-war engagements with the US influenced popular British responses to the outbreak of the Civil War.
Download or read book The American and British Debate Over Equality 1776 1920 written by James L. Huston and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2017-10-16 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historians have long contested the degree to which the central tenet of the Declaration of Independence—that all men are created equal—has manifested itself in American society and national policy. According to James L. Huston, many historians have focused too intently on class differences, slavery, and inequalities arising from ethnicity, sexuality, and gender, while overlooking important areas where notions of equality flourished during the century and a half after the Declaration’s signing. In The American and British Debate Over Equality, 1776–1920, Huston examines the egalitarian communities in rural northern America, particularly those enclaves that differed from the openly aristocratic cities and towns of the British Isles. In the aftermath of the American Revolution, British and American writers alike recognized that a growing philosophical rift divided the two nations: whereas Great Britain continued to embrace the inequality of its hierarchical class system, the United States professed allegiance to democratic ideals of equality—limited though these were by racial and gender norms of the day. Huston argues that the two countries engaged in an intellectual debate during the next century and a half over which ideal—equality or inequality—worked best in promoting social stability, political hegemony, and economic success. Exploring the effects of equality and inequality on many aspects of American life, he examines civil behavior, social customs, treatment of others, politics, education, religion, economic opportunity, and general public optimism. Drawing from decades of publications by American and British writers, Huston reveals the rhetorical strategies contemporary observers employed in defending or rejecting the organization of a society around broader notions of human equality. The American and British Debate Over Equality, 1776–1920 informs the modern debate over equality and inequality, not by theorizing and philosophizing, but by offering a glimpse into the practical applications of a functioning egalitarian society as compared to one that extolled monarchy and institutionalized inequality.
Download or read book The Worlds of American Intellectual History written by Joel Isaac and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Worlds of American Intellectual History follows American thinkers and their ideas as they have crossed national, institutional, and intellectual boundaries. The volume explores ways in which American ideas have circulated in different cultures. It also examines the multiple sites--from social movements, museums, and courtrooms to popular and scholarly books and periodicals--in which people have articulated and deployed ideas within and beyond the borders of the United States.
Download or read book British Visions of America 1775 1820 written by Emma Macleod and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-09-30 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Macleod examines changing British conceptions of America across the political spectrum during a period of political, cultural and intellectual upheaval. Macleod incorporates British writers of conservative, liberal and radical views.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Modern British Political History 1800 2000 written by David Brown and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-29 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The two centuries after 1800 witnessed a series of sweeping changes in the way in which Britain was governed, the duties of the state, and its role in the wider world. Powerful processes - from the development of democracy, the changing nature of the social contract, war, and economic dislocation - have challenged, and at times threatened to overwhelm, both governors and governed. Such shifts have also presented challenges to the historians who have researched and written about Britain's past politics. This Handbook shows the ways in which political historians have responded to these challenges, providing a snapshot of a field which has long been at the forefront of conceptual and methodological innovation within historical studies. It comprises thirty-three thematic essays by leading and emerging scholars in the field. Collectively, these essays assess and rethink the nature of modern British political history itself and suggest avenues and questions for future research. The Oxford Handbook of Modern British Political History thus provides a unique resource for those who wish to understand Britain's political past and a thought-provoking 'long view' for those interested in current political challenges.
Download or read book Stonewall Jackson Beresford Hope and the Meaning of the American Civil War in Britain written by Michael Turner and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2020-10-21 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this comprehensive examination of British sympathy for the South during and after the American Civil War, Michael J. Turner explores the ideas and activities of A. J. Beresford Hope—one of the leaders of the pro-Confederate lobby in Britain—to provide fresh insight into that seemingly curious allegiance. Hope and his associates cast famed Confederate general Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson as the embodiment of southern independence, courage, and honor, elevating him to the status of a hero in Britain. Historians have often noted that economic interest, political attitudes, and concern about Britain’s global reach and geostrategic position led many in the country to embrace the Confederate cause, but they have focused less on the social, cultural, and religious reasons enunciated by Hope and ostensibly represented by Jackson, factors Turner suggests also heightened British affinity for the South. During the war, Hope noticed a tendency among British people to view southerners as heroic warriors in their struggle against the North. He and his pro-southern followers shared and promoted this vision, framing Jackson as the personification of that noble mission and raising the general’s profile in Britain so high that they collected enough funds to construct a memorial to him after his death in 1863. Unveiled twelve years later in Richmond, Virginia, the statue stands today as a remarkable artifact of one of the lesser-known strands of British pro-Confederate ideology. Stonewall Jackson, Beresford Hope, and the Meaning of the American Civil War in Britain serves as the first in-depth analysis of Hope as a leading pro-southern activist and of Jackson’s reputation in Britain during and after the Civil War. It places the conflict in a transnational context that reveals the reasons British citizens formed bonds of solidarity with the southerners whom they perceived shared their social and cultural values.
Download or read book Labour and the Caucus written by James Owen and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-17 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By providing a comprehensive and multi-layered picture of the troubled relationship between working-class radicals and organised Liberalism in England between 1868 and 1888, Labour and the Caucus offers a new, innovative pre-history of the Labour party.
Download or read book American Empire written by A. G. Hopkins and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-02-20 with total page 1002 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new history of the United States that turns American exceptionalism on its head American Empire is a panoramic work of scholarship that presents a bold new global perspective on the history of the United States. Drawing on his expertise in economic history and the imperial histories of Britain and Europe, A. G. Hopkins takes readers from the colonial era to today to show how, far from diverging, the United States and Western Europe followed similar trajectories throughout this long period, and how America’s dependency on Britain and Europe extended much later into the nineteenth century than previously understood. In a sweeping narrative spanning three centuries, Hopkins describes how the revolt of the mainland colonies was the product of a crisis that afflicted the imperial states of Europe generally, and how the history of the American republic between 1783 and 1865 was a response not to the termination of British influence but to its continued expansion. He traces how the creation of a U.S. industrial nation-state after the Civil War paralleled developments in Western Europe, fostered similar destabilizing influences, and found an outlet in imperialism through the acquisition of an insular empire in the Caribbean and Pacific. The period of colonial rule that followed reflected the history of the European empires in its ideological justifications, economic relations, and administrative principles. After 1945, a profound shift in the character of globalization brought the age of the great territorial empires to an end. American Empire goes beyond the myth of American exceptionalism to place the United States within the wider context of the global historical forces that shaped the Western empires and the world.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Nineteenth Century Thought written by Gregory Claeys and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-08-22 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leading historians introduce the most influential trends in thought which originated or developed in the nineteenth century.
Download or read book Popular Agency and Politicisation in Nineteenth Century Europe written by Diego Palacios Cerezales and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-11-22 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an entry point to the most cutting-edge lines of research on popular political mobilisation in Europe. It brings together leading scholars from Germany, France, Britain, the Netherlands and Spain. The chapters explore the connected dimensions of popular participation within different countries and across borders, covering the topics of iconoclasm, popular acclamations, street politics, associations, petitions and electoral agitation. Focusing on the role of disenfranchised citizens and women, this collection broadens the themes of traditional political historical research that has identified political participation with the right to vote and struggles for political inclusion, and brings a wide array of formal and informal political practices to the centre of nineteenth-century European life. A must-read for scholars, undergraduates, and graduate students wishing to explore multiple dimensions of the history of political engagement and politicisation.
Download or read book Anglo American Travelers and the Hotel Experience in Nineteenth Century Literature written by Monika M Elbert and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-08-24 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines the hotel experience of Anglo-American travelers in the nineteenth century from the viewpoint of literary and cultural studies as well as spatiality theory. Focusing on the social and imaginary space of the hotel in fiction, periodicals, diaries, and travel accounts, the essays shed new light on nineteenth-century notions of travel writing. Analyzing the liminal space of the hotel affords a new way of understanding the freedoms and restrictions felt by travelers from different social classes and nations. As an environment that forced travelers to reimagine themselves or their cultural backgrounds, the hotel could provide exhilarating moments of self-discovery or dangerous feelings of alienation. It could prove liberating to the tourist seeking an escape from prescribed gender roles or social class constructs. The book addresses changing notions of nationality, social class, and gender in a variety of expansive or oppressive hotel milieu: in the private space of the hotel room and in the public spaces (foyers, parlors, dining areas). Sections address topics including nationalism and imperialism; the mundane vs. the supernatural; comfort and capitalist excess; assignations, trysts, and memorable encounters in hotels; and women’s travels. The book also offers a brief history of inns and hotels of the time period, emphasizing how hotels play a large role in literary texts, where they frequently reflect order and disorder in a personal and/or national context. This collection will appeal to scholars in literature, travel writing, history, cultural studies, and transnational studies, and to those with interest in travel and tourism, hospitality, and domesticity.
Download or read book Eminent Victorians written by Lytton 1880-1932 Strachey and published by Legare Street Press. This book was released on 2021-09-10 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.