Description
Book SynopsisThis book is an unprecedented synthesis of the literature on state development that explains how and why the contours of the British state have changed over the last three centuries. Ranging in scope from the Glorious Revolution to New Labour, it provides a fluent and comprehensive introduction to the changing shape and role of the British state.
Trade Review"This is a most impressive introduction to the development of the modern British state for which students and lecturers alike will be most grateful. It is fluently and engagingly well written, well structured and persuasively argued." Dr Colin Hay, University of Birmingham
"Harling's historical trajectory of expanding and receding social and economic state control is a familiar story. He tells it skilfully and with commendable clarity." Angus Hawkings, University of Oxford, Journal of Historical Association
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements.
Introduction.
Chapter 1: The Revolution Settlement and the Rise of the Fiscal-Military State, 1688-1715.
i. A Tentative Transfer of Power.
ii. War and the Growth of Parliamentary Authority.
iii. The Rise of the Fiscal-Military State.
iv. Warfare, the 'Influence of the Crown' and the 'Rage of Party'.
v. The Forging of a British State.
Chapter 2: The Fiscal Military State and its Discontents 1715-1815.
i. Parliamentary Supremacy in Practice: The Georgian Constitution.
ii. The Golden Age of the Fiscal-Military State.
iii. The Fiscal-Military State and its Discontents.
iv. The Georgian State and the Propertied Englishman.
v. The Centrality of Local Government.
Chapter 3: The Limits of the Laissez-Faire State, 1815-1880.
i. The Dismantling of the Fiscal-Military State.
ii. The Age of Disinterestedness: Elite Stewardship of the Minimal State.
iii. The Victorian State as Social Disciplinarian.
iv. The Limits of Laissez-Faire.
Chapter 4: The Making of the Social-Service State, 1880-1939.
i. The Origins of the Social-Service State, 1880-1914.
ii. The Foundations of the Social-Service State: Liberal Reform, 1906-14.
iii. War Interventionism I: 1914-1918.
iv. The Limits of 'Normalcy', 1919-39.
Chapter 5 Total War and Cradle to Grave Welfare, 1939-1979.
i. War Interventionism II: 1939-45.
ii. The Classic Welfare State, 1945 - 65.
iii. The Welfare State and Its Discontents, ca. 1965-79.
Chapter 6 The Limits of State Power, 1979 to the Present.
i. The Conservative Reshaping of the Postwar State.
ii. The Survival of the Welfare State.
iii. Strengthening the Centre.
iv. New Labour in Power.
Conclusion.
Notes.
Index
