British politics has been crucially shaped by England's role as pioneer of capitalism, by the experience of Empire, and by the particular form of its union with Scotland, Ireland and Wales. With the decline of Empire the attempt to bridge Europe and America has become ever more central to Britain's identity, political economy and ideology. In this major new book, Andrew Gamble assesses the major transformations of British politics under Thatcher and Blair and the stark choices for the future at the start of the 21st century.
Winner of the W. J. M. Mackenzie Prize for best book published in...

British politics has been crucially shaped by England's role as pioneer of capitalism, by the experience of Empire, and by the particular form of its union with Scotland, Ireland and Wales. With the decline of Empire the attempt to bridge Europe and America has become ever more central to Britain's identity, political economy and ideology. In this major new book, Andrew Gamble assesses the major transformations of British politics under Thatcher and Blair and the stark choices for the future at the start of the 21st century.

By the time Margeret Thatcher resigned as Prime Minister in 1990, she has tranformed the fortunes of her Conservative Party. Under her leadership the Conservatives won three general election victories in a row over a divided opposition and enjoyed a degree of political and ideological dominance that led many to speak of the end of the socialist era and the emergence of a new consensus. What Reagan had done in the United States, Margaret Thatcher had done in Britain. A new wordThatcherismhad entered the political lexicon.

Thatcherism came to signify a wide-ranging and distinctive...

Behind India's high recent growth rates lies a story of societal conflict that is scarcely talked about. Across production sites, state institutions and civil society organisations, the dominant and less well-off sections of society are engaged in a protracted conflict that determines the material conditions of one quarter of the world's 'poor'. Increasingly mobile, and often engaged in multiple occupations in multiple locations, India's 'classes of labour' are highly segmented, but far from passive in the face of ongoing processes of exploitation and domination.
Drawing on detailed...

Politics was once regarded as an activity which could give human societies control over their fate. However, there is now a deep pessimism about the ability of human beings to control anything very much, least of all through politics. This new fatalism about the human condition claims that we are living in the iron cages erected by vast impersonal forces arising from globalization and technology: a society that is both anti-political and unpolitical, a society without hope or the means either to imagine or promote an alternative future. It reflects the disillusion of political hopes in...

In his essay -The end of laissez-faire-, Keynes distinguished between the agenda and the non-agenda of government. This book asks how we interpret that distinction today.

• A ground-breaking collection concerned with rethinking the contemporary role of the state.
  
• Comprises essays written by leading scholars and politicians.
  
• Looks back at the expansion of the social democratic state in post-war Britain, and at the subsequent challenge to this from neo-liberal ideas and policies.
  
• Discusses new doctrines for managing the...

Since the election of Tony Blair to the leadership of the Labour party in 1997 and the party's subsequent electoral triumph in 1997 after eighteen years in opposition there has been intense speculation about what the Labour party now stands for.

Theoretical writing on the company and company law has been dominated in recent years by economics. This collection of essays by a distinguished team of authors drawn from a variety of disciplines seeks to build on the insights of this economic analysis and broaden understanding by examining the company in a wider historical, legal, political, and sociological context.

The study of British politics has been reinvigorated in recent years as a generation of new scholars seeks to build-upon a distinct disciplinary heritage while also exploring new empirical territory, and finds much support and encouragement from previous generations in forging new grounds in relation to theory and methods. It is in this context that The Oxford Handbook of British Politics has been conceived. The central ambition of the Handbook is not just to illustrate both the breadth and depth of scholarship that is to be found within the field. It also seeks to demonstrate the vibrancy...

Divisions in the EU are considered, as well as the conflicts that have arisen from enlargement and foreign policy concerns. Leading specialists on European politics and society reflect on the nature of consensus and competition between elites, and whether the EU may be able to provide a sense of common identity and purpose for its citizens.