The British Aristocracy and the Modern World: (272 Proceedings of the British Academy)

About the Book

In the thirty-five years since the publication of David Cannadine’s Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy (1990) the power of Britain’s landed elite declined, but they remain far from extinct. One-third of Britain’s land still belongs to the aristocracy. Moreover, partly inspired by Cannadine’s book, we now know much more about the ways in which the aristocracy established their hold on modernity, and how they have lasted so long. Many key questions remain. How much was this a distinctively British story, to what extent were things different in Scotland, Wales and Ireland? Does ‘decline and fall’ accurately describe what happened to landed elites in other countries, particularly in western Europe, or amongst assimilated elites such as Jews? Was the ‘soft’ power of the aristocracy – their role in the arts, philanthropy and higher education – as significant as their political and economic sway? How dependent on the colonies, and also the USA, were the British aristocracy for their wealth in the first place, and how did their role overseas change their profile at home? This volume brings together a wide-ranging group of scholars to explore The Decline and Fall, developing its themes in new ways, and investigating other aspects for the first time.

Table of Contents:

Table of contents:

List of Figures Notes on Contributors Preface

1. Introduction MILES TAYLOR

2. The Scottish Aristocracy, Landownership and Land Reform, 1746-2022: Decline and Fall or Resistance and Resilience? ANNIE TINDLEY

3. The Decline and Fall of the Anglo-Irish Aristocracy: The Role of the Irish Land Commission, 1881-1992 TERENCE DOOLEY

4. Wales and the Country House: Reflections on Decline, Loss and Renewal
   SHAUN EVANS

5. A Jewish Landed Interest ABIGAIL GREEN AND MARCUS ROBERTS

6. Transatlantic Slavery, Landownership and Enclosure in England, 1738-1836 CORRINE FOWLER

7. Decline and Fall German style. A Historiographical approach towards the Nobility EWALD FRIE AND DANIEL MENNING

8. Anglo-American Marital Relations, 1870-1940
   KATHLEEN BURK

9. The Decline and Fall of the Lady Bountiful? Adaptation, Empire and Philanthropy MARTHA GROPPO

10. Is There Such Thing as an English Country House? STEPHANIE BARCZEWSKI

11. Solving the Country House Problem after the Second World War
    BEN COWELL

12. Indian Princes, Parliament and Presidential Power: the Concord of Princes (1967-71) ANGMA D. JHALA

13. An Island Story: the Decline and Fall of a European Elite MAX EGREMONT

14. A Working Leisured Class
    CHRISTOPHER RIDGWAY

Index

About the Author :
Miles Taylor moved to Berlin in 2021. He was previously Professor of Modern History at the University of York in the UK, and between 2008 and 2014 Director of the Institute of Historical Research in London. He studied at Queen Mary College University of London, Harvard University (where he was a Kennedy Scholar) and the University of Cambridge where he was awarded his PhD in 1989. He has taught at Cambridge, King’s College London, and Southampton (where he was Professor of Modern British History, 2001-4). Professor Taylor is a 19th century specialist with a particular interest in Britain and its empire. His recent books include Empress: Queen Victoria and India (Yale 2018) and (as co-editor) The Utopian Universities: A Global History of the New Campuses of the 1960s (Bloomsbury, 2020). He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society. Christopher Ridgway is head curator at Castle Howard, Yorkshire. Since 1999 he has been Chair of the Yorkshire Country House Partnership. He is also Adjunct Professor in the Dept of History at Maynooth University. His publications include: Castle Howard and Brideshead, Fact, Fiction and In-Between (Castle Howard, 2011); The Morpeth Roll, Ireland identified in 1841 (Four Courts Press, 2013); and (as co-editor), The Intellectual World of the Country House in Ireland and Britain (Four Courts Press, 2024). He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

Review :

Dr Jennifer Davey, Director, History of Parliament Trust

Offering a thoughtful, intelligent, and lively appraisal of David Cannadine’s The Decline and Fall the British Aristocracy, this collection offers fresh perspectives on the British landed elite and opens up new avenues for research and debate. It traces the intersections of power and privilege through regional, imperial, transnational, gender and religious histories. This will be an important work for all those interested in the evolving dynamics of the British aristocracy.

Professor Peter Mandler FBA, Professor of Modern Cultural History, University of Cambridge

The British aristocracy seems always to be declining and never to have fallen. As these essays show, it retains today a good deal of its wealth and, if not its political power, still its power to arouse debate and controversy. The recent scholarship showcased here covers all four nations of the United Kingdom and Ireland too, Jewish, German, Indian, Caribbean and American connections, women as wives and philanthropists, and the waxing and waning of fortunes over time - revealing a class much more multifarious, globalized and resilient than is usually recognized.