Since its first publication in 1982, The Making of Modern British Politics' has been widely acclaimed as the most sophisticated account of changes in British political history between the 1860s and the outbreak of the Second World War. For the third edition, the text has been extended to cover the politics of the Second World War and the election of 1945, following through to a more satisfying conclusion the changes of the last 40 years of the nineteenth century. The updated third edition, like the previous two, focuses on the problems of interpretation and analysis raised by the most recent work in the field. Several of the existing chapters have been revised in light of the latest research, particularly the material on Edwardian electoral politics and the high politics of 1918-1931. The new edition also incorporates current thinking on the Popular Front and Fascism, and looks at how the Labour Party evolved into a national rather than sectional party by recruiting Conservative voters and politicians into its ranks.
'Paul Johnson brings a novelist's eye for character and incident in the tradition of Dickens and Trollope to Victorian commercial life. His acute observations of human foible is complemented by the analytical precision of a social scientist to produce a major study of the market in Victorian Britain. Far from the abstraction or neutrality of neo-classical economics, he shows how the market was permeated with differences of status between rich and poor, between capital and labour. It involved social choices about the desirability or acceptability of various modes of economic conduct, which are as relevant now in the age of Bernie Madoff as of Melmotte.' Martin Daunton, Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge and author of Trusting Leviathan
'Paul Johnson brings his precise analytical skills and acerbic wit to bear on the prime question of our time – how can personal responsibility be brought into the operation of impersonal capitalism now dominated by global corporations? Blending tales of outrageous frauds perpetrated at the commanding heights of Victorian England with sorry examples of the harsh penalties that the lower classes continued to suffer for their infractions, Johnson argues that each stage of the creation of corporate capitalism went astray by increasingly leaving personal responsibility behind for corporate managers and promoters. Sadly, the unintended consequences of those missteps are with us today.' Larry Neal, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
'Fascinating.' Times Higher Education
An instructive history, this remarkable work recounts the causes leading to the persecution of the French Protestants and traces their emigration from France to England and Ireland. An interesting feature of the work, to the genealogist, is the collection of 300 biographies of noted Huguenot refugees who settled in Britain. Additionally, the work contains an important section on the Huguenots in America by G. P. Disoway.
Pandaemonium: The Coming of the Machine as Seen by Contemporary Observers 1660?1886 
Nigel Jones' uncle was killed in action near Ypres in 1915, aged just eighteen, and his father served on Field Marshal Haig's staff: no wonder then, that he has always been fascinated by the First World War. THE WAR WALK describes his pilgrimage to the Western Front battlefields: it is a compelling blend of history, travel and personal anecdotes from some of the last surviving veterans of the First World War. He follows the old trench networks from the Belgian coast to the Swiss frontier, bringing each battlefield to life with vivid eyewitness testimony and investigating how the sites are preserved today for modern visitors
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He writes with wit and penetration, and every page of Empire can be read with relaxed pleasure (Spectator )
Paxman is witty, incisive, acerbic and opinionated . . . In short, he carries the whole thing off with panache bordering on effrontery (Piers Brendon Sunday Times )
A very engaging account...with a good sprinkling of jokes, funny nicknames and sexual references. Paxman makes some very sharp points and writes well (Guardian )
An intimate and revealing exploration of the men who did the Elizabethan security state's dirty work. Lifting the lid on the Protestant-Catholic 'cold war' of the late sixteenth century, Stephen Alford sifts the sources with a forensic eye, bringing to life the motley collection of self-interested chancers and drifters, religious and political zealots who watched each other in the streets of London, Paris and Rome. Leading us into the dark corners, safe houses and interrogation chambers of this twilight world, The Watchers paints a fascinating picture of the vast and nebulous threat facing Elizabethan England - and its determination to deal with that threat by any means necessary (Thomas Penn, Author Of Winter King )
Alford ... has delved deeply into 16th-century archives to unearth a history of the dark underside to the Elizabethan golden age - a page-turning tale of assassination plots, torture, and espionage (Publishers Weekly )
In the campaigns of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, the deserved reputation of the British infantry has tended to overshadow the contribution of the cavalry, but in fact they did form an integral part of the army, carrying out duties crucial to the success of other arms. British Cavalryman 1792-1815 recounts what these duties were and examines the men who performed them. The different regiments of the cavalry are listed and some of the arm's more exotic or professional corps, such as the King's German Legion, examined.
The new history of England through the lives of its kings and queens, written by a team of pre–eminent historians. Published in association with the British Library.
