'It is a melancholy thought that as soon as reforms are put into practice, disillusionment enters the political scene...' Norman Gash's Ford Lectures, originally delivered at Oxford in 1964, address an era of reform that followed the Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts in 1828, Catholic Emancipation in 1829, and the Reform Act of 1832. The history of this period has often focused on the conflicts that proved necessary before the Acts came to pass. But it was only after 1832 that the real crisis of reform emerged: the clash between what had actually been done, and what men thought should be the consequences of what had been done. As Gash notes of the arguments over the Reform Bill of 1831, "substantially the foundations for the Victorian two-party system were laid by the divisions of politicians into Reformers and Conservatives."

Undergraduate and sixth-form students will undoubtedly benefit from his lucid and critical commentary.' - Martin Pugh, History.

A comprehensible and accessible portrait of the various 'languages' which shaped public life in nineteenth century Britain, covering key themes such as governance, statesmanship, patriotism, economics, religion, democracy, women's suffrage, Ireland and India.

This is a study of the parliamentary history of the Whigs during the Age of Reform, describing the extent to which both Grey and Melbourne's governments, with Peel's assistance, attempted to safeguard the interests of the landed aristocracy while allowing for moderate reforms in Church and State.

This book offers new perspectives on the origins and development of John Ruskin’s political thought. Graham A. MacDonald traces the influence of late medieval and pre-Enlightenment thought in Ruskin’s writing, reintroducing readers to Ruskin’s politics as shaped through his engagement with concepts of natural law, legal rights, labour and welfare organization. From Ruskin’s youthful studies of geology and chemistry to his back-to-the-land project, the Guild of St. George, he emerges as a complex political thinker, a reformer—and what we would recognize today as an environmentalist. John Ruskin’s Politics and Natural Law is a nuanced reappraisal of neglected areas of Ruskin’s thought.

What would it mean to be 'conservative' in Britain before such terminology was even used? What is the relationship between the Jacobitism or Toryism of the early eighteenth century and the ideology of loyalist Englishmen of the latter Georgian period. This 1993 book confronts these questions in discussing an evolving right-wing mentalité.

There was no more appropriate person to write this book. Robert Blake was the doyen of Tory historians being most famous for his unsurpassed biography of Disraeli (to be reissued in Faber Finds). His history of the Conservative Party was first published in 1970. It then went as far as Churchill. A subsequent edition took it up to Thatcher and the final edition, the one being reissued by Faber Finds, to Major. For the span it covers, it remains the definitive one-volume history. 'His consummate insight into the whole of the political scene, and his power to communicate the enjoyment of it, makes this exciting reading for anyone remotely interested in British political and social history, or even in the English character.' Sunday Times 'This book is full of insights and enriched throughout by sparkling commentary' Evening Standard 'An up-to-date history of the Party was wanted. Mr Blake supplies it with lucidity, scholarship and serene worldliness' Guardian