Few subjects bring out so well the differences between ourselves and our ancestors as the history of Christian charity. In an increasingly mobile and materialist world, in which culture has grown more national, indeed global, we no longer relate to the lost world of nineteenth-century parish life. Today, we can hardly imagine a voluntary society that boasted millions of religious associations providing essential services, in which the public rarely saw a government official apart from the post office clerk. Against the background of the welfare state and the collapse of church membership, the...

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...

Walter Bagehot (1826-1877) was a prominent English journalist, banker, and man of letters. For many years he was editor of The Economist, and to this day the magazine includes a weekly "Bagehot" column. His analyses of politics, economics, and public affairs were nothing short of brilliant. Sadly, he left no memoir. How, then, does this book bear the title, The Memoirs of Walter Bagehot? Frank Prochaska explains, "Given my longstanding interest in Bagehot's life and times, I decided to compose a memoir on his behalf." And so, in this imaginative reconstruction of the memoir...