The Edwardians
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- £3.99
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- £3.99
Publisher Description
Edwardian Britain is the quintessential age of nostalgia, often seen as the last long summer afternoon before the cataclysmic changes of the twentieth century began to take form. The class system remained rigidly in place and thousands were employed in domestic service. The habits and sports of the aristocracy were an everyday indulgence. But it was an age of invention as well as tradition. It saw the first widespread use of the motor car, the first aeroplane and the first use of the telegraph. It was also a time of vastly improved education and the public appetite for authors such as Conan Doyle, Rudyard Kipling and E. M. Forster was increased by greater literacy. There were signs too, of the corner history was soon to turn, with the problematic Boer War hinting at a new British weakness overseas and the drive for Votes for Women and Home Rule for Ireland pushing the boundaries of the social and political landscape. In this major work of history, Roy Hattersley has been given exclusive access to many new documents to produce this magisterial new appraisal of a legendary age.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this intricate, self-assured and insightfully anecdotal account of British social and political history from 1901 to 1914, Hattersley (Nelson, etc.), a former Labour MP and cabinet minister, challenges the notion of the Edwardian age as "a long and sunlit afternoon," instead presenting it as a time of massive upheaval. After dissecting the louche temperament of King Edward VII, Hattersley profiles the period's leading political protagonists, including the "young turks" A.J. Balfour and Joseph Chamberlain (each "handicapped by character weaknesses") and analyzes the politically efficacious if "unlikely partnership" of soldier Winston Churchill and Welsh solicitor David Lloyd George. Pithy chapters delineate the raging issues that fatally divided the Liberal Party: empire and the Boer War, Irish nationalism, women's suffrage, the trade union movement and the rise of the Labour Party. Throughout Hattersley emphasizes the House of Commons' transformation in this period from a "gentleman's Parliament" into a professional legislature. He also summarizes cultural and social highlights, such as the professionalization of sports; new movements in the arts; intellectual life and church politics; and of course the advent of WWI. Illuminating the motivations of individuals and the age-old tensions between prominent elite families, Hattersley also challenges the traditional leftist view of Churchill. A convincing account of a watershed epoch, Hattersley's concise yet comprehensive history casts new light on a much-misunderstood era. 16 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW.
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