This is an analysis of English political thought in the 18th and 19th centuries, organized around the concept of a Whig tradition. Arguing that the study of 19th-century liberal thought has taken too little account of its 18th-century antecedents, Burrow considers the central ideas of Liberalism and how they evolved from the early 18th to the late 19th century, and examines the main points of continuity, analogy, and difference in the progress of society, public opinion, individuality, and the idea of balance. A concluding chapter looks at the early 20th century.

This elegantly written book explores the history of ideas in Europe from the revolutions of 1848 to the beginning of the First World War. Broader than a straight survey, deeper and richer than a textbook, this work seeks to place the reader in the position of an informed eavesdropper on the intellectual conversations of the past.
J. W. Burrow first outlines the intellectual context of the mid-nineteenth century, using ideas taken from physics, social evolution, and social Darwinism, and anxieties about modernity and personal identity, to explore the impact of science and social thought on...

The book seeks to establish the significance for the Victorians of three great crises of English history.

An investigation of the reasons why Victorian pioneers of social science were habitually approaching the study of other societies with largely positivistic and evolutionary methodologies.