Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction
1: 1911
2: 1912
3: 1913
4: 1914
5: 1915
6: Aftermath

About the Author

Cameron Hazlehurst FRSL FRHistS is a historian and public affairs adviser who has served in Australian government posts, chaired official committees on chemical and radiation regulation, and led The Ethicos Group, a public integrity consultancy, 2007-23. He was an Assistant Secretary of the Department of Urban and Regional Development, a First Assistant Secretary of the Department of Communications, and National Campaign Director for AIDS
Information and Communication. His academic appointments include Foundation Professor and Head of the School of Humanities, Queensland University of Technology, and Fellowships in the ANU Research School of Social Sciences, The
Queen's College and Nuffield College, Oxford. Christine Woodland FRHistS is a retired professional archivist. After working in Nuffield College, Oxford, and the Warwickshire County Record Office she was Archivist of the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick, 1993-2005. She was co-editor with Cameron Hazlehurst of A Liberal Chronicle, Jack Pease's Journals and Papers 1908-1910, and co-compiler of A Guide to the Papers of British Cabinet Ministers,
1900-1951and the revised and expanded Guide 1900-1964.

Reviews

A significant event in the historiography of the period... Pease's jottings serve as the basis for a monumental feat of historical reconstruction.
*Diplomacy & Statecraft, Emeritus Professor Bernard Wasserstein, author of Barbarism and Civilization: A History of Europe in Our Time*

An exciting new source for the Asquith ministry...superbly edited by Cameron Hazlehurst & Christine Woodland in an immensely scholarly OUP book.
*TLS Books of the Year 2023, Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny*

This book is a treasure trove, an essential source for anyone studying the Liberal government in the crucial years 1911-1915. It casts new light on almost all of the controversial and fundamental issues with which it deals.
*Sir Vernon Bogdanor, Professor of Government, King's College London, author of The Strange Survival of Liberal Britain*

A work of scholarly art. The Introductory essay and main text exude authority. A Liberal Chronicle in Peace and War represents the gold standard; it is mandatory reading (and ownership) for all specialists on post-Edwardian England.
*Nicholas A. Lambert, author of The War Lords and the Gallipoli Disaster*

The industry and resourcefulness in tracking down references and allusions is quite staggering and the bibliographical material the book contains will itself be of immense value to scholars.
*Emeritus Professor David Dutton, author of A History of the Liberal Party since 1900*

This is an important edition of an important historical source, quite masterfully annotated. It will be indispensable to anyone interested in the late-Edwardian period, perhaps the most turbulent years in modern British history.
*Professor T. G. Otte, author of Statesman of Europe: A Life of Sir Edward Grey*

What makes this book so magnificent is the way in which the two industrious editors, a well-established historian and an eminent archivist, have embellished Pease's text...his words set the scene, which his editors enrich superbly...with an astonishingly wide array of fascinating details which only political insiders at the time would have known...There are a number of books about this momentous period, but none of them captures the passion it generated as well as these diaries in their edited form.
*Lord Lexden, President, the Conservative History Group*

The underlying, and wholly meticulous, research for this book has extended for over half a century...Political historians of the early twentieth century will find...this massive, revelatory tome invaluable as the contents cast light on all aspects of this crowded period...The editors of A Liberal Chronicle in Peace and War have displayed extraordinary tenacity and diligence in tracking down a huge number of references, and the annotations are full and impeccably scholarly throughout.
*J. Graham Jones, author of David Lloyd George and Welsh Liberalism*

This splendid piece of scholarly editing by Hazlehurst and Woodland will be prized for its illumination of the last years of Liberal administration Virtually every entry is accompanied by a superb editorial gloss that not only fills in the context but acts as a review of all recent scholarship on the subject covered, or alluded to, in the diary entry.
*Emeritus Professor Raymond Callahan, author of Churchill: Retreat from Empire*

This book is a gem... a work of first-class historical scholarship that informs, intrigues - and entertains. The quality is no surprise. The book is the culmination of a prodigious research effort ...matchless knowledge of Edwardian and post-Edwardian British history that enriches the book in every way ...through Pease's diary, readers can eavesdrop on the astonishing table talk in the Asquiths' political, family, and social circles, and follow the leading celebrities of the government as they manoeuvred their way through successive crises.
*Dr Douglas Newton, author of The Darkest Days: The Truth Behind Britain's Rush to War, 1914*

A true labour of love ... a vital and fascinating contribution to the literature of the period...a multi-decade epic of 'slow scholarship' of a kind that deserves warm celebration in the over-hurried academia of today.
*Professor Richard Toye, author of Lloyd George and Churchill: Rivals for Greatness*