Synopses & Reviews
This absorbing narrative history brings into sharp and lively focus a period of immense energy, creativity, and turmoil. The book opens in 1886, as the Empire is poised to celebrate Victoria's golden jubilee, and ends in 1918 at the close of the 'war to end all wars', with England knowing that an era has conclusively ended. It vividly portrays every aspect of the nation's life - political, social, and cultural - carrying the reader from the wretched city slums to the bustling docks and factories, from the grand portals of Westminster to Blackpool's new holiday beach, from the world of the leisured aristocracy to the trenches of the Western Front and the violent politics of the militant suffrage movement.
Review
"A masterful, lucidly written and well proportioned survey over the whole range of national life."--Times Literary Supplement
"This is a marvellous book in its breadth, its comprehensiveness and, given its length, the enormous pleasure it has been to read. Necessarily a work of synthesis, it efficiently weaves together telling quotes, examples and statistics to conjure up the late Victorian and Edwardian world."--History Today
"Searle's book is notable for its thematic and geographic breadth of coverage, the lucidity of its prose, and the wisdom and balance of its analysis. Readers will find expert and accessible guidance on topics of current historiographical concern...this achievement deserves the strongest recommendation. Essential."--CHOICE
Review
"A masterful, lucidly written and well proportioned survey over the whole range of national life."--Times Literary Supplement
"This is a marvellous book in its breadth, its comprehensiveness and, given its length, the enormous pleasure it has been to read. Necessarily a work of synthesis, it efficiently weaves together telling quotes, examples and statistics to conjure up the late Victorian and Edwardian world."--History Today
"Searle's book is notable for its thematic and geographic breadth of coverage, the lucidity of its prose, and the wisdom and balance of its analysis. Readers will find expert and accessible guidance on topics of current historiographical concern...this achievement deserves the strongest recommendation. Essential."--CHOICE
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part I. England in 1886
1. Nationalism and Nationality
2. Generation and Gender
3. Social Identities
4. Governance and Politics
Part II. Late Victorian England 1886-1899
5. Home Rule and the Politics of Unionism
6. The Social Question: Conflict and Stability 1886-1899
7. Politics and the Social Question 1886-1899
8. Uneasy Dominion: Britain under Challenge
9. The Boer War 1899-1902
Part III. Edwardian England
10. The Unionist Project 1902-1905
11. The Liberal Party and Social Welfare Politics
12. The Years of 'Crisis' 1908-1914
13. The Road to War
Part IV. Leisure, Culture, and Science
14. The Pursuit of Pleasure
15. Art and Culture
16. Science and Learning
Part V. The Great War
17. The Loss of Innocence 1914-1916
18. Tragedy and Triumph 1916-1918
19. The Patriotic Experience
20. War and the Reshaping of Identities
Chronology
List of Cabinets and General Elections
Bibliography
Index