Making Aristocracy Work explores the political role and activities of the peerage, both inside and outside Parliament, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Adonis examines the House of Lords and its practices during this period, and offers a new interpretation of the constitutional crisis of 1909-1911. He reassesses the strengths and weaknesses of the Lords, questioning its effectiveness as a revising chamber, but at the same time clearly demonstrating the way it functioned in terms of constitutional tradition. He also examines the non-parliamentary activities of the...

In the years immediately following the Second World War, Britain peacetime conscription was practiced for the first time. L.V. Scott examines the military thinking regarding conscription, showing how the 1947 National Service Act came to be regarded by the military as deficient and expensive. The demands of conscription retarded the development of an efficient post-war regular army. Scott explores the policies of both Labour and Conservative parties, tracing the process by which Labour, previously bitterly opposed to conscription, came to pass the 1947 Act. His book is a valuable analysis of...

This is the most comprehensive comparative study of the agrarian systems of the frontier lands of Argentina and Canada in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Jeremy Adelman challenges much received wisdom about the economic "success" of North America and the "failure" of Latin America. Based on extensive primary research in Argentina, Canada, and Britain, Adelman's book points to the central importance of property relations in economic history in these regions.

The first systematic study of civil law in late Imperial Russia, this book shows that efforts to adjust family, property, and inheritance law to changing social and economic conditions often became intertwined with attempts to shape society in accordance with competing ideological ends. Through a restructuring of the family's legal basis, members of the growing professional class endeavored to promote conflicting conceptions of authority, individuality, gender, and law. Legal reform also served for members of the emerging legal and medical professions as a way to establish their authority,...

The religious changes of Henry VIII and Edward VI had a profound effect upon the clergy of the English church, raising questions as to its status, jurisdiction, and proper place in the divine scheme of salvation. This is the first full examination of the cumulative impact of these changes upon the relationship between priests in the parishes and the lay men and women who depended upon them for spiritual nourishment and religious instruction, and who frequently found them wanting in these and other respects. It provides a perceptive exploration of the role of the Catholic priesthood in the...

In late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Britain there was deep concern about the perceived physical and military deterioration of the nation, reflected in the diminishing birth rate, persistently high infant mortality, and the poor health of the working class. Many medical practitioners and politicians believed that Jewish mothers were "model mothers" whose exemplary care of their children offered a solution to these problems. Lara Marks assesses the extent to which the stereotype of Jewish mothers reflected the reality of their experience in East London between 1870 and 1939. Not only...

This study provides a new perspective on the process of state formation in modern England. Eastwood uncovers the complex interplay between central and local institutions that lay at the heart of Hanoverian polity, and shows how the transformation of local government in the early nineteenth century had a profound influence on the developing political culture and institutional framework of modern Britain.

This is a pioneering comparative study of the early years of the British Labour Party and the German Social Democratic Party. Drawing on a wealth of primary sources in both countries, Berger argues that the traditional view of deep-seated cultural and ideological differences between the two labor movements must be revised. His controversial conclusions will open up a new perspective on old debates.

Party Politics and Decolonization explores the relationship between Conservative Party politics and British colonial policy in tropical Africa during the unbroken period of Conservative government from 1951 to 1964. Based on recently released documentary evidence, much of it never before published, Philip Murphy's study traces the development of Conservative attitudes towards Britain's role as a colonial power and describes reactions within the party to the rapid British withdrawal from Africa following the 1959 General Election.

In this first legal and financial history of bankruptcy in nineteenth-century England, V. Markham Lester offers a full statistical analysis and detailed account of bankruptcy, imprisonment for debt, and company winding-up, and traces the decline in the level of insolvency towards the end of the century. His scholarly and detailed analysis demonstrates the validity of the Victorians' notion that financial failure was a significant problem for English society, and shows that random factors may have played as great a role as cyclical fluctuations in bankruptcy levels.
Victorian...