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Author: John Turner Publisher: ISBN: 9780300050462 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 511
Book Description
The First World War led to a fundamental realignment of British politics. A Liberal government of glittering talent and great achievement was swept away. The coalition that replaced it was in turn overthrown by a cross-party movement led by David Lloyd George, who came to power as the Liberal Prime Minister of a largely Conservative coalition in December 1916. In the post-war general election the historic Liberal Party was split in two and was replaced as the main party on the left by the reorganised and revitalised Labour Party. This penetrating study by John Turner explores this process of political change at a moment of crisis in British political history. Turner describes how the Lloyd George coalition first grappled with military disaster and the threat of economic collapse and then faced a further threat to political stability as the desire for a negotiated peace grew in the factories, in the corridors of Westminster, and even in the British army in France. He relates how Lloyd George and his Conservative allies, fearing political chaos as much as defeat in the field, tried to reconstruct the party system to suit themselves. The author examines the struggle for power among leading politicians, showing how that struggle was driven by the overwhelming problems of governing a society at war and anticipating the uncertainties of peace. He anatomises British political society to explore how the war accelerated pre-war political developments and diverted the course of change. He exposes paradoxes in political values, especially in attitudes toward the state, and reassesses the major personalities. His concluding study of the results of the 1918 election offers a unique picture of the emerging political geography of twentieth-century Britain. The book sheds new light on such familiar topics as the decline of Liberalism, the rise of Labour, the growth of the state, and the clash between civil and military authority, and it poses new questions about the British political system. It will be indispensable to an understanding of modern Britain.
Author: John Turner Publisher: ISBN: 9780300050462 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 511
Book Description
The First World War led to a fundamental realignment of British politics. A Liberal government of glittering talent and great achievement was swept away. The coalition that replaced it was in turn overthrown by a cross-party movement led by David Lloyd George, who came to power as the Liberal Prime Minister of a largely Conservative coalition in December 1916. In the post-war general election the historic Liberal Party was split in two and was replaced as the main party on the left by the reorganised and revitalised Labour Party. This penetrating study by John Turner explores this process of political change at a moment of crisis in British political history. Turner describes how the Lloyd George coalition first grappled with military disaster and the threat of economic collapse and then faced a further threat to political stability as the desire for a negotiated peace grew in the factories, in the corridors of Westminster, and even in the British army in France. He relates how Lloyd George and his Conservative allies, fearing political chaos as much as defeat in the field, tried to reconstruct the party system to suit themselves. The author examines the struggle for power among leading politicians, showing how that struggle was driven by the overwhelming problems of governing a society at war and anticipating the uncertainties of peace. He anatomises British political society to explore how the war accelerated pre-war political developments and diverted the course of change. He exposes paradoxes in political values, especially in attitudes toward the state, and reassesses the major personalities. His concluding study of the results of the 1918 election offers a unique picture of the emerging political geography of twentieth-century Britain. The book sheds new light on such familiar topics as the decline of Liberalism, the rise of Labour, the growth of the state, and the clash between civil and military authority, and it poses new questions about the British political system. It will be indispensable to an understanding of modern Britain.
Author: Jeremy Paxman Publisher: Penguin UK ISBN: 0670919640 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 418
Book Description
Jeremy Paxman's magnificent history of the First World War tells the entire story of the war in one gripping narrative from the point of view of the British people. *** We may think we know about it, but what was life really like for the British people during the First World War? The well-known images - the pointing finger of Lord Kitchener; a Tommy buried in the mud of the Western Front; the memorial poppies of Remembrance Day - all reinforce the idea that it was a pointless waste of life. So why did the British fight it so willingly and how did the country endure it for so long? Using a wealth of first-hand source material, Jeremy Paxman brings vividly to life the day-to-day experience of the British over the entire course of the war, from politicians, newspapermen, campaigners and Generals, to Tommies, factory workers, nurses, wives and children. It shows how both British life and identity were utterly transformed - not always for the worst - by the enormous upheaval of the war. Rich with personalities, surprises and ironies, this lively narrative history paints a picture of courage and confusion, doubts and dilemmas, and is written with Jeremy Paxman's characteristic flair for storytelling, wry humour and pithy observation. *** "A fine introduction to the part Britain played in the first of the worst two wars in history. The writing is lively and the detail often surprising and memorable" Guardian "He writes so well and sympathetically, and chooses his detail so deftly, that if there is one new history of the war that you might actually enjoy from the very large centennial selection this is very likely it" The Times
Author: Andreas Rose Publisher: Berghahn Books ISBN: 1785335790 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 542
Book Description
Prior to World War I, Britain was at the center of global relations, utilizing tactics of diplomacy as it broke through the old alliances of European states. Historians have regularly interpreted these efforts as a reaction to the aggressive foreign policy of the German Empire. However, as Between Empire and Continent demonstrates, British foreign policy was in fact driven by a nexus of intra-British, continental and imperial motivations. Recreating the often heated public sphere of London at the turn of the twentieth century, this groundbreaking study carefully tracks the alliances, conflicts, and political maneuvering from which British foreign and security policy were born.
Author: Paul Addison Publisher: Random House ISBN: 1446424219 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 357
Book Description
The Road to 1945 is a rigorously researched study of the crucial moment when political parties put aside their differences to unite under Churchill and focus on the task of war. But the war years witnessed a radical shift in political power - dramatically expressed in Labour's decisive electoral victory in 1945. In his acclaimed study, Paul Addison reconstructs and interprets the five-year wartime coalition, and traces this sea-change from its roots in the thirties, to the powerful spirit of post-war rebuilding. The Road to 1945 is an imaginative, brilliantly written and landmark work, underpinned by a powerful and expertly researched argument.
Author: Simon Heffer Publisher: Century ISBN: 9781847948311 Category : Languages : en Pages : 928
Book Description
_______________________________ 'A brilliant history: The first serious and really wide-ranging history of the Home Front during the Great War for decades. Scholarly, objective and extremely well-written. Filled with surprising revelations and empathy. Heffer's eye for the telling detail is evident on almost every page. A remarkable intellectual and literary achievement.' - ANDREW ROBERTS, TELEGRAPH _______________________________ A major new work of history on the profound changes in British society during the First World War The Great War evokes images of barbed wire and mud-filled trenches, and of the carnage of the Somme and Passchendaele, but it also involved change on the home front on an almost revolutionary scale. In his hugely ambitious and deeply researched new book, Simon Heffer explores how Britain was drawn into this slaughter, and was then transformed to fight a war in which, at times, its very future seemed in question. After a vivid account of the fraught conversations between Whitehall and Britain's embassies across Europe as disaster loomed in July 1914, Heffer explains why a government so desperate to avoid conflict found itself championing it. He describes the high politics and low skulduggery that saw the principled but passive Asquith replaced as prime minister by the unscrupulous but energetic Lloyd George; and he unpicks the arguments between politicians and generals about how to prosecute the war, which raged until the final offensive. He looks at the impact of four years of struggle on everyday life as people sought to cope with dwindling stocks of food and essential supplies, with conscription into the Army or wartime industries, with air-raids and with the ever-present threat of bereavement; and, in Ireland, with the political upheaval that followed the Easter Rising. And he shows how, in the spring of 1918, political obstinacy and incompetence saw all this sacrifice almost thrown away. Throughout, he complements his analysis with vivid portraits of the men and women who shaped British life during the war - soldiers such as Lord Kitchener, politicians such as Churchill, pacifists such as Lady Ottoline Morrell, and overmighty subjects such as the press magnate Lord Northcliffe. The result is a richly nuanced picture of an era that endured suffering and loss on an appalling scale but that also advanced the emancipation of women, notions of better health care and education, and pointed the way to a less deferential, more egalitarian future. _____________________________ 'Staring at God is a vast compendium of atrocious political conduct. Refreshing. A trenchant history.' - GERARD DE GROOT, THE TIMES 'A magisterial history' - MELANIE MCDONAGH, DAILY MAIL 'Gloriously rich and spirited [...] it zips along, leavened by so many wonderful cultural and social details.' - DOMINIC SOUTHBROOK, SUNDAY TIMES 'Ambitious in its scope, content and approach. Masterly.' - CHARLES VYVYAN, STANDPOINT 'Fascinating stuff.' - SPECTATOR 'Possibly the finest, most comprehensive analysis of the home front in the Great War ever produced.' - LITERARY REVIEW 'Every bit as good as its two predecessors. Illuminating.' - EXPRESS 'Absorbing' - NEW STATESMAN
Author: Michael J.K. Walsh Publisher: Taylor & Francis ISBN: 1317029836 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 335
Book Description
In 1914 almost one quarter of the earth's surface was British. When the empire and its allies went to war in 1914 against the Central Powers, history's first global conflict was inevitable. It is the social and cultural reactions to that war and within those distant, often overlooked, societies which is the focus of this volume. From Singapore to Australia, Cyprus to Ireland, India to Iraq and around the rest of the British imperial world, further complexities and interlocking themes are addressed, offering new perspectives on imperial and colonial history and theory, as well as art, music, photography, propaganda, education, pacifism, gender, class, race and diplomacy at the end of the pax Britannica.
Author: Alan G. V. Simmonds Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1136629971 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 335
Book Description
The First World War appears as a fault line in Britain’s twentieth-century history. Between August 1914 and November 1918 the titanic struggle against Imperial Germany and her allies consumed more people, more money and more resources than any other conflict Britain had hitherto experienced. For the first time, it opened up a Home Front that stretched into all parts of the British polity, society and culture, touching the lives of every citizen regardless of age, gender and class. Even vegetables were grown in the gardens of Buckingham Palace. Britain and World War One throws attention on these civilians who fought the war on the Home Front. Harnessing recent scholarship, and drawing on original documents, oral testimony and historical texts, this book casts a fresh look over different aspects of British society during the four long years of war. It revisits the early war enthusiasm and the making of Kitchener’s new armies; the emotive debates over conscription; the relationships between politics, government and popular opinion; women working in wartime industries; the popular experience of war and the question of social change. The book also explores areas of wartime Britain overlooked by recent histories, including the impact of the war on rural society; the mobilization of industry, and the importance of technology, as well as exploring responses to air raids, food and housing shortages; the challenges to traditional social and sexual mores and wartime culture. Britain and World War One is an essential book for all students and interested lay readers of the First World War.
Author: Lucy Bland Publisher: Manchester University Press ISBN: 1526109328 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 290
Book Description
This book provides a concise set of thirteen essays looking at various aspects of the British left, movements of protest and the cumulative impact of the First World War. There are three broad areas this work intends to make a contribution to; the first is to help us further understand the role the Labour Party played in the conflict, and its evolving attitudes towards the war; the second strand concerns the notion of work, and particularly women’s work; the third strand deals with the impact of theory and practice of forces located largely outside the United Kingdom. Through these essays this book aims to provide a series of thirteen bite-size analyses of key issues affecting the British left throughout the war, and to further our understanding of it in this critical period of commemoration.
Author: Nicholas A. Lambert Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 0674063066 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 662
Book Description
Before the First World War, the British Admiralty conceived a plan to win rapid victory in the event of war with Germany-economic warfare on an unprecedented scale.This secret strategy called for the state to exploit Britain's effective monopolies in banking, communications, and shipping-the essential infrastructure underpinning global trade-to create a controlled implosion of the world economic system. In this revisionist account, Nicholas Lambert shows in lively detail how naval planners persuaded the British political leadership that systematic disruption of the global economy could bring about German military paralysis. After the outbreak of hostilities, the government shied away from full implementation upon realizing the extent of likely collateral damage-political, social, economic, and diplomatic-to both Britain and neutral countries. Woodrow Wilson in particular bristled at British restrictions on trade. A new, less disruptive approach to economic coercion was hastily improvised. The result was the blockade, ostensibly intended to starve Germany. It proved largely ineffective because of the massive political influence of economic interests on national ambitions and the continued interdependencies of all countries upon the smooth functioning of the global trading system. Lambert's interpretation entirely overturns the conventional understanding of British strategy in the early part of the First World War and underscores the importance in any analysis of strategic policy of understanding Clausewitz's "political conditions of war."
Author: John Turner
Author: John Turner
Author: Jeremy Paxman
Author: Andreas Rose
Author: Paul Addison
Author: Simon Heffer
Author: Heather Jones
Author: Michael J.K. Walsh
Author: Alan G. V. Simmonds
Author: Lucy Bland
Author: Nicholas A. Lambert