About the Book
This, the third volume to appear in the New Oxford History of England, covers the period from the repeal of the Corn Laws to the dramatic failure of Gladstone's first Home Rule Bill. In his magisterial study of the mid-Victorian generation, Theodore Hoppen identifies three defining themes. The first he calls `established industrialism' - the growing acceptance that factory life and manufacturing had come to stay. It was during these four
decades that the balance of employment shifted irrevocably. For the first time in history, more people were employed in industry than worked on the land. The second concerns the
`multiple national identities' of the constituent parts of the United Kingdom. Dr Hoppen's study of the histories of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and the Empire reveals the existence of a variety of particular and overlapping national traditions flourishing alongside the increasingly influential structure of the unitary state. The third defining theme is that of `interlocking spheres' which the author uses to illuminate the formation of public culture in the period. This,
he argues, was generated not by a series of influences operating independently from each other, but by a variety of intermeshed political, economic, scientific, literary and artistic developments.
This original and authoritative book will define these pivotal forty years in British history for the next generation.
Table of Contents:
List of Plates
List of Maps
List of Tables
Acknowledgements to Illustrations
Introduction
PART 1: SOCIETY AND THE STATE
1: The Agrarian Interest: Agricultural ups and downs - Rural society
2: The Middle Sort of People: Numbers, experiences, anxieties - Professional persons - Lower borderlands - Urban contexts
3: Workers by Hand: Numbers, work, poverty - Respectability, adjustment, autonomy - Standards of living
4: The Nature of the State: What should the State do? - Centre and localities - What the State did
PART II: THE FABRIC OF POLITICS
5: Parties, Government, Policies 1846-1855: Corn Law repeal - Parties - Governments - Imperial and foreign affairs
6: Crimean War and Indian Mutiny: War against Russia - Revolt in India
7: Palmerston and After, 1855-1868: Palmerston at last - Conservative interlude - Palmerston again and Gladstone rising - Perturbations, 1865-1868 - Imperial and foreign affairs
8: Reform and Electoral Politics: Questions of reform - Reform Acts 1867/1868 - Elections and the electoral system
PART III MONEY AND MENTALITIES
9: A Maturing Economy: Revolutions, climaterics, productivity - Industries, railways services - A trading nation - Investing at home and overseas - No longer at full steam?
10: Living and Spending: Families, sex, relationships - Houses, domesticity, making ends meet - Food and clothes - Shops, pubs, and having a good time
11: The Business of Culture: Preliminary - Literature - Music - Painting - Architecture
12: Godly People: Denominational landscapes - Who they were and what they did
13: The Evolutionary Moment: Spencer, Darwin, and others - Progress, dissolution, hopes, fears - Matters of belief - matters of imagination
PART IV ENGLAND AND BEYOND
14: A British Nation? The Experiences of Scotland and Wales: Britain, a lop-sided affair - Scotland: society and religion - Wales: religion and change - Scotland: Identities, regions, land - Wales: land and politics - Ambivalent states
15: The Island of Ireland: Contexts - The Great Famine - A post-famine world: land, religion, politics
16: Gladstone and Disraeli 1868-1880: Gladstone sprinting - Disraeli strolling - Foreign and imperial affairs - Another Liberal tide
17: Shifts and Realignments: Leaders, parties, policies - Foreign and imperial affairs - Irish questions
Maps
Chronology
List of Cabinets
Bibliography
Index
About the Author :
Theodore K. Hoppen is Professor in History at the University of Hull.
Review :
`Theodore Hoppen's book will define our views of mid-Victorian society for the next two or three generations, and well it should. It is a book written from deep knowledge, wide reading and sparkling historical vision; students and scholars will gain much from reading it.'
D. G. Paz, An American Journal - Quarterly Journal devoted to British Studies
`Hoppen's splendid volume in the New Oxford History of England series surpasses in organisation, interpretation, and breadth of treatment its predecessors.'
D.G. Paz, An American Journal - Quarterly Journal devoted to British Studies
`The final judgement after 700 pages has to be one of admiration and commendation for Hoppen's magnificent achievement - his handling of the vast literature, his polymathic grasp of an extremely diverse subject matter, and his exceptionally readable prose...he has produced a worthy successor to Woodward and Ensor that will have its place among those authoritative texts on Victorian Britain to which students first turn for guidance.'
David Nicholls, Victorian Studies
Hoppen's splendid volume in the New Oxford History of England series surpasses in organization, interpretation, and breadth of treatment its predecessors...Theodore Hoppen's book will define our views of mid-Victorian society for the next two or three generations, and well it should. It is a book written from deep knowledge, wide reading, and sparkling historical vision; students and scholars will gain much from reading it. D G Paz, University of North
Texas
[A]...magnificent achievement - his [Hoppen's] handling of the vast literature, his polymathic grasp of an extremely diverse subject matter, and his exceptionally readable prose...[have] produced a worthy successor to Woodward and Enson that will have its place among those authoritative texts on Victorian Britain to which students first turn for guidance. David Nicholls, Victorian Studies
`This stimulating and comprehensive volume provides eloquent justification for the study of modern British history. It should remain an invaluable source of knowledge for today's political class which seems strangely contemptuous and ignorant of this country's past.'
Robert Taylor, Spectator
`[An] impressive study of mid-Victorian Britain.'
Asa Briggs, THES
`It is a measure of Hoppen's achievement that he manages to convey this rich and nuanced picture of Britain between 1846 and 1886 with prodigious learning and total conviction, but without ever losing control or being overwhelmed by his own erudition...a magnificant work.'
David Cannadine, New Statesman
`An account marked by an acute judiciousness and, as always, enviable scholarship.'
Michael Bentley, TLS
`[A] welcome development in Victorian historiography...The Mid-Victorian generation, with all the scholarly trappings of a volume in an Oxford history, is the benchmark against which the next few decades of scholarship will be tested ... The Mid-Victorian Generation amounts to a comprehensive, fair and indispensible review of the last thirty years of scholarly work on the period. Professor Hoppen has rendered an older complex historiography more
intelligible. The book will quickly take its place alongside those other vital tools of the Victorian specialist.'
Dr Miles Taylor, Kings College, UCL, Reviews in History
`...this is a book that celebrates the materialism of Mid-Victorian society, perhaps more unashamedly than any previous general history. There is a great deal in this history that can only inspire awe in the reader. The overall standard of accuracy is very high.'
Jonathan Parry, LRB
`Professor Hoppen has produced a very impressive study reflecting...new ways of thinking...a balanced, rounded and extremely engaging account of Britain between the repeal of the Corn Laws and the failure of Gladstone's first Home Rule Bill. As well as offering a wide-ranging survey of the period, Hoppen's study is valuable because it does not mask areas of disagreement between historians in an attempt to provide synthesis. This is an exceptionally
imaginative and absorbing book which reveals how those who may not have qualified as voters had an impact on the debate on the legitimacy of the state. Specialists will admire it; undergraduates may find it hard
to put down.'
Pamela Pilbeam, Royal Holloway College, London. History
