Table of Contents

1: Edwardian Equipoise and the First World War
2: Unstable Equilibrium, 1918-1929
3: The Crisis of Labour and the Conservative Hegemony, 1929-39
4: The Party System Thrown Off Course
5: The English Road to Socialism.
6: England: Social Change, Historical Accident and Democracy

About the Author

Ross McKibbin is Emeritus Research Fellow at St John's College, Oxford.

Reviews

The distillation of a lifetime's reflection, and as compelling as it is engaging. The historian's art at its most disciplined and distinguished.
*Times Higher Education*

[A] subtly argued study.
*Paul Smith, Times Literary Supplement*

A model of careful scholarship
*Vernon Bogdanor, New Statesman*

The political history so readably, as well as convincingly, analysed by McKibbin has plenty of dramatic surprises and unexpected reversals of fortune.
*W. G. Runciman, London Review of Books*

This is a book that is certainly well written and offers a beguiling explanation of the events that created England's present, but far from inevitable, system of democracy. It deserves to be widely read.
*Keith Laybourn, History*

An elegant and engaging addition to the history of English democracy.
*Laura Beers, Reviews in History*

An excellent guide to current thinking on these issues, and should be very useful for students as well as faculty concerned with the social basis of British politics. Highly recommended.
*H.L. Smith, CHOICE*

offer[s] a fascinating discussion ... This book can be read and enjoyed by the general reader as we ll as the academic specialist
*Iain Sharpe, Journal of Liberal History*

an outstanding piece of scholarship: it is a major original contribution to the field ... a path-breaking work that will demand attention of all those working on the period.
*Andrew Thorpe, English Historical Review*

Ross McKibbin has encouraged a rich and complex approach to British history. We are all in his debt.
*Rohan McWilliam, Tribune Magazine*