Radical Conduct
Politics, Sociability and Equality in London 1789-1815

An innovative new reading of the character of, and tensions in, London's radical intellectual culture at the time of the French Revolution.

Mark Philp (Author)

9781108820219, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 15 December 2022

285 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.417 kg

'… a careful, nuanced study of how London's radical reformist circles pursued 'deliberative equality' within a context of significant social inequality … Emerging from pandemic social and intellectual isolation, this book takes on a resonance that makes it a particularly profound read.' Miriam L. Wallace, Eighteenth-Century Fiction

While the French Revolution drew immense attention to French radicals and their ideas, London also played host to a radical intellectual culture. Drawing on both original material and a range of interdisciplinary insights, Radical Conduct transforms our understanding of the literary radicalism of London at the time of the French Revolution. It offers new accounts of people's understanding of and relationship to politics, their sense of the boundaries of privacy, their practices of sociability, friendship, gossip and discussion, the relations between radical men and women, and their location in a wider world of sound and movement in the period. It reveals a series of tensions between many radicals' deliberative practices and aspirations and the conventions and practices in which their behaviour remained embedded. Exploring these relationships and pressures reveals the fractured world of London society and politics, dramatically illuminating both the changing fortunes of radical men and women, and the intriguing uncertainties that drove some of the government's repressive policies.

Introduction
1. Politics and privacy
2. Disagreement and deliberation
3. Plurality: women's circles in London
4. Radical literary women
5. Gender and deliberative equality
6. Negotiating equality
7. A private affair
8. Music and movement
Conclusion. Life during wartime.

Subject Areas: Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], European history [HBJD], Regional & national history [HBJ], History [HB], Humanities [H]