Leonard Woolf: Bloomsbury Socialist is an invaluable biography of an important if somewhat neglected figure in British cultural and political life,whose significance has been overshadowed by that of his wife, Virginia Woolf. His vital role in her life and career is a central aspect of this incisive study. Born to a prosperous middle-class Jewish family, he was profoundly affected by the early death of his father, a prominent barrister and QC, which left his family in reduced econo...

Anglo-American Attitudes is a pioneering study of Anglo-American connections in their widest sense. Previous studies of Anglo-American relations have focused narrowly on official government-to-government contacts rather than on other kinds of less formal links. This book redresses that imbalance by examining not only diplomatic relations, but also a wide variety of social, economic, intellectual and cultural connections. It is also the first study which examines Anglo-American relations ov...

The Sunday Times BestsellerA new assessment of the West’s colonial recordIn the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet empire in 1989, many believed that we had arrived at the ‘End of History’ – that the global dominance of liberal democracy had been secured forever.Now however, with Russia rattling its sabre on the borders of Europe and China rising to challenge the post-1945 world order, the liberal West faces major threats.These t...

Fairness and Freedom compares the history of two open societies--New Zealand and the United States--with much in common. Both have democratic polities, mixed-enterprise economies, individuated societies, pluralist cultures, and a deep concern for human rights and the rule of law. But all of these elements take different forms, because constellations of value are far apart. The dream of living free is America's Polaris; fairness and natural justice are New Zealand's Southern Cross. Fischer ...

Now a major documentary film starring Billy BraggIn the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the British Government banished their political enemies - viewed with the same alarm as today's 'terrorists' - to the shores of Australia. Sent as convicts to the other side of the world, these political prisoners included liberals, democrats and republicans; machine breakers, food rioters, trade unionists and Chartists; radical journalists and intellectuals; Irish revolutionaries, Scot...

This collection brings together a wide array of writings on Canadian immigrant history, including many highly regarded, influential essays. Though most of the chapters have been previously published, the editors have also commissioned original contributions on understudied topics in the field.The readings highlight the social history of immigrants, their pre-migration traditions as well as migration strategies and Canadian experiences, their work and family worlds, and their politi...

This is the history of temperance and prohibition as you've never read it before: redefining temperance as a progressive, global, pro-justice movement that affected virtually every significant world leader from the eighteenth through early twentieth centuries. When most people think of the prohibition era, they think of speakeasies, rum runners, and backwoods fundamentalists railing about the ills of strong drink. In other words, in the popular imagination, it is a peculia...

The path-breaking history of modern liberalism told through the pages of one of its most zealous supportersIn this landmark book, Alexander Zevin looks at the development of modern liberalism by examining the long history of the Economist newspaper, which, since 1843, has been the most tireless—and internationally influential—champion of the liberal cause anywhere in the world.But what exactly is liberalism, and how has its message evolved?...

Patterns of the Past has been published to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Ontario Historical Society. Organized on 4 Sept 1888 as the Pioneer Association of Ontario, the Society adopted its current name in 1898. Its objectives, for a century, have been to promote and develop the study of Ontario’s past. The purpose of this book is both to commemorate and to carry on that worthy tradition.Introduced by Ian Wilson, Archivist of Ontario, and ...

The originators of classical political economy—Adam Smith, David Ricardo, James Steuart, and others—created a discourse that explained the logic, the origin, and, in many respects, the essential rightness of capitalism. But, in the great texts of that discourse, these writers downplayed a crucial requirement for capitalism’s creation: For it to succeed, peasants would have to abandon their self-sufficient lifestyle and go to work for wages in a factory. Why would they willingly do this?

How did Britain cease to be global? In Untied Kingdom, Stuart Ward tells the panoramic history of the end of Britain, tracing the ways in which Britishness has been imagined, experienced, disputed and ultimately discarded across the globe since the end of the Second World War. From Indian independence, West Indian immigration and African decolonization to the Suez Crisis and the Falklands War, he uncovers the demise of Britishness as a global civic idea and its impact on communities across...

First Published in 1980. The dynamism within the American colonies in the fifty years or so before the outbreak of the crisis of the 1760s that was to lead to the Revolution has never been in doubt. The articles written included in this text suggest a number of ways in which the ‘imperial factor’ was of real importance in colonial life and show that there was dynamism on the British side as well as in the colonies.