[This book] is by no means a traditional history of political thought. It is about public discourse in the broadest sense, basing its analysis on a wide variety of printed sources, from political journalism to philosophical treatises to calendars of evening classes. It offers by turns in-depth analyses of pivotal texts and speeches, and wider sampling from reviews, pamphlets, and Hansard. It deals with a topic of obvious importance in a consistently illuminating
fashion, aiming to show how established party doctrines and entrenched assumptions rendered certain readings of Burke's ideas particularly persuasive ... a work of serious scholarship and methodological intent, which opens new doors in the study of political reputations. And at the absolute least, it
must force historians to abandon their long-standing reflexive recourse to the adjective "Burkean" in writing on modern British politics.
Emily Jones is Lecturer in Modern British History at the University of Manchester. After completing her DPhil in History at Exeter College, University of Oxford, in 2015, she held positions at Pembroke College, University of Cambridge and Columbia University in New York. Her current research focuses on the development of ideas about C/conservatism and constitutionalism at the turn of the twentieth century.