Description
Book SynopsisThis engaging book provides a gateway to larger themes in modern British history through a set of fascinating portraits of individuals that explore important events and movements from the perspective of the people involved. Political developments are illuminated through chapters on John Locke, Charles Townshend, popular radicalism, and Margaret Thatcher. Religion and education are considered through essays on evangelicalism, the Oxford Movement, Charles Bradlaugh, and Sir James Kay Shuttleworth. Industrial and imperial questions are explored through pieces on the Great Exhibition, the Indian Rebellion of 1857, and post-colonial Nigeria. National identity and wartime experience come to life in the lives of G. K. Chesterton and of Barbara Nixon, an Airraid Warden during the Blitz. Many of the chapters examine the experiences of women, including single women in early modern England, suffragettes, and Irish nationalist Mary Butler. As a rich and humanized approach to history, this book offers readers a deeper understanding of key facets of British life in the early modern and modern periods.
Trade ReviewThe collection's scope is impressive, and the essays are beautifully written yet quite accessible. This volume will no doubt serve to make history come alive both for students and the general public. Highly recommended. All public and undergraduate collections. -- S. L. Hoglund, SUNY at Stony Brook * CHOICE *
The collection's scope is impressive, and the essays are beautifully written yet quite accessible. This volume will no doubt serve to make history come alive both for students and the general public. Highly recommended. -- S. L. Hoglund * CHOICE *
Students will find these essays about notable persons an invaluable means of relating to an issue or idea on a individual level, which then allows them to approach larger concepts with greater understanding. The Human Tradition in Modern Britain will be very useful in classes as the basis for lively discussions. -- Margaret Minor, Nicholls State University
Table of ContentsChapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 John Locke: Politics, Philosophy, and Public Service Chapter 3 Sisters, Shopkeepers, and Dissenters: Singlewomen in Britain at the Turn of the Eighteenth Century Chapter 4 Charles Townshend and Eighteenth-century British Politics Chapter 5 Evangelical Religion Chapter 6 Captain Rock, Captain Swing: "Primitive" Rebels and Radical Politics in England and Ireland, 1790-1845 Chapter 7 The Oxford Movement in Wales: A Catholic Revival in a Protestant Land Chapter 8 Albert and the Great Exhibition of 1851: Creating the Ceremonial of Industry Chapter 9 The Indian Rebellion of 1857: A Crisis in British Imperial Consciousness Chapter 10 Charles Bradlaugh, Militant Unbelief, and the Civil Rights of Atheists Chapter 11 In Fits and Starts: The Education Struggle in Nineteenth-century Britain Chapter 12 A Woman's Right to Be Herself: The Political Journeys of Three British Suffrage Campaigners Chapter 13 Mary Butler, Domesticity, Housewifery, and Identity in Ireland, 1899-1912 Chapter 14 G. K. Chesterton and British National Identity in World War I Chapter 15 Barbara Nixon: A Warden's Blitz Chapter 16 Mothers First: Onitsha Women Battle the Government in Colonial and Postcolonial Nigeria, 1956-1964 Chapter 17 Margaret Thatcher: The Woman and Her Times
