Politics and the People
A Study in English Political Culture, 1815–1867

An ambitious reinterpretation of nineteenth-century English politics using oral, visual and printed records.

James Vernon (Author)

9780521115087, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 25 June 2009

448 pages, 69 b/w illus. 6 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm, 0.64 kg

This ambitious and provocative study provides a unique narrative of nineteenth-century English political history. Based on extensive research the book draws on critical theory to read and interpret a vast range of oral, visual and printed sources, in an attempt to expand our conception of the politics of the period. Read in the context of such sources, nineteenth-century English politics becomes resolved into a story about the struggle to define the nation's constitution, past, present and future. It suggests the existence of a popular strain of English libertarian politics, albeit one whose radical and democratic potential was gradually closed down. In short, despite the invention of a liberal constitution in this period, politics became less (not more) democratic, a lesson which the author sees as pertinent for many struggling to live in, or establish, liberal democratic constitutions in our own times.

List of plates
List of tables
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction: a new political history
Part I. Politics, Community and Power: 2. Power legislated: the structure of official politics
3. Power imagined: the culture of official politics
4. The medium and the message: power, print, and the public sphere
Part II. The Language of Organisation: 5. A language of party?
6. Organisation as symbol
7. The politics of culture
8. The idol and the icon: leaders and their popular constituencies
Part III. Narratives of the Nation: 9. The nation and its people: the discourse of popular constitutionalism
10. Conclusion: new narratives in the history of English politics?
Appendices
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], British & Irish history [HBJD1]