Table of Contents

Introduction
1: The Sovereignty of Parliament
2: A Constitutional Turning Point: 1828-1836
3: 'Parliamentary Government' and its Critics: 1832-1867
4: Constituency Politics: 1832-1867
5: The Dynamics of Voting: 1832-1867
6: The Moral Climate of Reform: 1848-1867
7: 'Shooting Niagara': the 1867 Reform Acts
8: The Demise of 'Parliamentary Government': 1868-1884
9: Party, Society and the State: 1886-1905
10: Epilogue

About the Author

Angus Hawkins is Professor of Modern British History at Oxford University and a Fellow of Keble College. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He has written widely on Victorian politics, including his two-volume biography of the 14th Earl of Derby, entitled The Forgotten Prime Minister, also published by Oxford University Press.

Reviews

What is different about Victorian Political Culture is that the author places parliament at the centre of his story. Reprising and extending the themes of a seminal article on 'parliamentary government' from 1989. ... Hawkins digs deep into recent research on the politics of the period, benefiting not least from the compendious information now being generated by the 1832-68 section of the History of Parliament. He is diligent about including Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Public moralists from Carlyle to Dicey are seamlessly worked in. ... we are left with an important and original work of synthesis that confirms the value of letting a good idea develop, ripen and mature over time. Victorian Political Culture reasserts the place of conservatism with a small and a large 'c' in the 19th century.
*Miles Taylor, Parliamentary History*

Hawkins builds carefully on existing studies, making good use of the published and as yet unpublished History of Parliament volumes, but produces here an original and powerful interpretation which will command the field for some time.
*Anthony Howe, History*

This book succeeds, not only in restoring political history to what Stedman Jones called the central position in the study of the Victorian world, but also in reaffirming the importance of primary research, if the historian wishes to offer valid explanation of change, rather than mere descriptions of the past. This book can be seen as a rallying point for those who wish to see the New Political History become more than merely a fashionable label for studies of questionable rigour and insufficient depth, and should be celebrated by all students of the Victorian period.
*Ian Cawood, The Times Literary Supplement,*

a mine of useful information for those new to the subject while providing a judicious and elegant synthesis of recent research which will appeal to novices and aficionados alike ... Victorian Political Culture is essential reading for all students of Victorian politics, but it should also be read by anyone with an interest in the workings of Victorian society who wants to understand the central role of politics and political institutions within it.
*Dr Simon J. Morgan, Reviews in History*