Modern England Research Articles

Reviews: What does Jeremy think? Jeremy Heywood and the making of modern Britain; Diary of an MP’s wife: Inside and outside power

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Peter Sloman. Transfer State: The Idea of a Guaranteed Income and the Politics of Redistribution in Modern Britain.

Can you identify the fact among these fictions? The promise of a guaranteed income has long figured as a progressive fantasy. Indeed, few issues have exerted such an emotional hold on the moral vision of the left. Support from the labor movement, however, proved no match for opposition from the likes of Milton Friedman, Enoch Powell, and the British Treasury. The universal basic income has therefore come nearest to fruition not in the United States or Britain, but in the Scandinavian welfare states. Peter Sloman is a slyly counterintuitive historian, whose study of the basic income in modern Britain reveals the surprising origins of this increasingly visible public policy. In Transfer State, a history of the politics of a guaranteed income in Britain since the First World War, Sloman subverts every premise (save the last) in that seemingly commonsensical paragraph. Joining the history of ideas with policy studies, he...

William J. Bulman. The Rise of Majority Rule in Early Modern Britain and Its Empire.

Using the experience of English representative ­­institutions in the early modern era as a case study, William J. Bulman’s ambitious and extraordinarily successful monograph, The Rise of Majority Rule in Early Modern Britain and Its Empire, seeks to problematize and recover the hitherto uninvestigated origins of majority rule as the primary mode of ­­decision-making in modern democracies. Unabashedly, the author, defining institutions as “systems of social factors that together seem to generate a regularity of pattern of social practices” (23), presents it as a history “not of ideology, ideas, discourses, or norms” but “of practices and institutions” (6). Observing that scholars have long focused so intently upon explaining “the period’s great constitutional and ideological watersheds,” from the English Revolution to the American Revolution, “to the exclusion of equally important transformations in institutions and mundane patterns of political practice,” he argues they have failed to consider “the long-term importance of...

The Lost History of Liberalism: From Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century, by Helena Rosenblatt

Helena Rosenblatt proposes ‘a word history’ (p. 3, emphasis original) of liberalism in three neat acts: its invention in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century France, its transformation in mid-nineteenth-century Germany, and its adoption by the USA in the early twentieth century. The methodology is influenced by Quentin Skinner and the Cambridge School and, accordingly, Rosenblatt rigorously contextualises the word ‘liberalism’, interrogating its shifting meanings across time and space. But the book is more than simply a history of the word liberalism: it provides a lucid overview of the development of liberal thought in France, Germany and the USA across the long nineteenth century. However, there are some frustrating omissions and the book is somewhat marred by its author’s insistence on ‘rescuing’ liberalism and restoring its putative core values. The book begins with a chapter on liberalism’s ‘prehistory’ in Ancient Rome and early modern Britain. Here Rosenblatt establishes her vision of liberalism, grounding it in ideas about generosity and duty to the common good as well as freedom. Thereafter the book proceeds chronologically through the long nineteenth century, beginning with the French revolutionary era and its impact on the emergence and spread of liberalism. Rosenblatt’s endpoint is a little less clear, and the final chapter on liberalism becoming a ‘creed’ in the USA condenses the history of twentieth-century liberalism up until the Second World War into just under twenty pages. Throughout the book, the analysis ranges across politics, religion, education and the ubiquitous nineteenth-century ‘social question’; there are also sections on Gladstone and the British Liberal Party alongside the core material from French, German and American political thinkers, leaders and actors. The breadth of the work creates a rather tricky balancing act, however, and the analysis is repeatedly pulled back to French liberalism, the focus of much of Rosenblatt’s previous work. At times, there is a sense that the author cannot quite escape the pull of France, even while insisting on the contribution of often overlooked German liberals, and on the significance of liberalism’s reformulation in the USA.

Emigration State: Race, Citizenship and Settler Imperialism in Modern British History, c. 1850–1972

AbstractWhat role did migration play in the making of modern Britain? We now have a good sense of how ethnicity, class, religion and gender structured immigrants' experience and what impact they had on Britain's culture, society and economy. But as Nancy Green pointed out almost two decades ago, scholars of migration must focus on exit as well as entry. Such a call to study ‘the politics of exit’ is especially apposite in the case of the UK. For in every decade between 1850 and 1980 (with the exception of the 1930s), the UK experienced net emigration year on year. This article analyses this outflow of migrants to reveal a new vision of the UK as an ‘emigration state’. The article employs this concept to make a new argument about the formation of migration policy in the UK and offers a revised account of the geographical boundaries of the modern British state.

Speculative Metaphysics and the Culture of Ideas in Early Victorian Britain: The Case of Francis Foster Barham

Abstract This article focuses on the social and intellectual world of Francis Foster Barham (1808–1871) from the late 1830s to the mid-1850s. Barham was a prolific polymathic writer and lecturer whose oeuvre ranged from the classics to theology to esotericism, contemporary drama and literature. Based on wide reading and his interactions with fellow transcendentalists and idealists, he elaborated his own philosophy, ‘syncretism’, a universalising system of thought with applications to political, religious and social reform. This article uses the example of Barham, his philosophical speculations, and the small groups with which he was affiliated in London and the West Country, to illuminate the trajectory of a humanistic discourse—in this case speculative metaphysical philosophy—in the life of relatively obscure people who, outside of academic and scholarly circles, interpreted ‘high’ ideas in their own way. The article suggests that there is much more to be done to understand fully the cultural and intellectual history of the humanities in modern Britain, especially in the thought and experience of lesser-known people and associations. Recovering the history of ideas through such figures, their networks, and their own terminologies can point the way to fresh understandings of the history, nature and processes of intellectual development, including its ‘freaks’ and dead-ends, as well as its manifestation in and as culture.

Physics and Psychics: The Occult and the Sciences in Modern Britain, by Richard Noakes

Reviewed by: Physics and Psychics: The Occult and the Sciences in Modern Britain by Richard Noakes Ruth Heholt (bio) Physics and Psychics: The Occult and the Sciences in Modern Britain, by Richard Noakes; pp. xvi + 403. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019, $115.56, $49.44 paper. Of his study, Physics and Psychics: The Occult and the Sciences in Modern Britain, Richard Noakes declares, "This book is about the heyday of 'physics and psychics' which took place in the period circa 1870–1930. … It argues that the study of psychical phenomena occupied a much more significant place among late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century physical scientists than we have assumed" (5). This admirably clear introduction to the text begins a fascinating trawl through the controversial subject of the relationship between physics and psychical research. We are familiar with the debates around science and psychics, and indeed, Noakes has conducted some admirable research into this area over the years. However, this book makes a differentiation that opens things up and brings exciting new nuances to a somewhat well-worn debate. The main point is that Noakes concentrates on physics in particular rather than science in general, and the fruitful difference this focus makes is surprising. One of the striking things about the book is that Noakes often does not separate out the psychic from the physical in a way one might expect from a twenty-first-century scholarly monograph. Instead, he shows that the emergence of physics as a discrete scientific discipline happened alongside the rise in interest in psychic phenomena (material, philosophical, technological, spiritual, and scientific). Moreover, the two shared the same platform and, for many people, were hardly distinguishable. This is a very new take on the scholarly discussion of the relationship between the occult and the supernatural, on the one hand, and science, on the other. Most work on the subject sees them as coming together at various points of interest but not as being conceived and emerging together. Noakes, however, cites "an entangled cultural history of physical and psychical sciences" (19). This is evidenced in his coined term "physical-psychical scientists" (19). Eschewing the terms "pseudo-scientists" and "pseudo-science" (he uses "alternative sciences") makes this stance one [End Page 122] of the freshest and most exciting aspects of the book (8). Coming at the subject with serious intent and with no objective of debunking people who were serious about their work allows Noakes to obtain a depth of discussion not often found even in the most admirable works on the subject. As he states early on, psychical and physical sciences were intermingled from the start; the reciprocal implications "were taken much more seriously than we have acknowledged" (19). This is a dense book which is a labor of love and the culmination of many years of work. Not designed to be read in one sitting, it is organized in a way that will allow scholars and students to find a rich depth of material to suit their needs even if they do not read the book from cover to cover. The introduction gives a comprehensive overview of the way that scholarship has dealt with and examined the subject over the years. From looking at the decline in religion, to considering specifics of belief and new technologies, to exploring underlying tropes around gender, class, race, intellectual trends, and psychology, the introduction provides an extremely useful survey of academic discussions about the subject of science and the occult and what might be termed the supernatural. This introduction could easily become the go-to place for students and scholars interested in this area. The book is peppered with famous names such as Franz Mesmer, Michael Faraday, William Crookes, Oliver Lodge, and John Elliotson. And, perhaps because of the scientific slant that the scholarship is exploring, it is quite male-centric, and I feel some of the key texts on women, the occult, and science have been missed. Where, for example, is Diana Basham's 1992 The Trial of Woman: Feminism and the Occult Sciences in Victorian Literature and Society, or Marina Warner's work, notably Phantasmagoria: Spirit Visions, Metaphors & Media (2006)? Also (although I acknowledge a distinct...

Matthew Ward and Matthew Heffernan , eds. Loyalty to the Monarchy in Late Medieval and Early Modern Britain, c.1400–1688. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. Pp. 302. $109.99 (cloth).

Matthew Ward and Matthew Heffernan , eds. Loyalty to the Monarchy in Late Medieval and Early Modern Britain, c.1400–1688. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. Pp. 302. $109.99 (cloth). - Volume 61 Issue 2

Robert G. Ingram, Jason Peacey, and Alex W. Barber, eds. Freedom of Speech, 1500–1850. Politics, Culture and Society in Early Modern Britain. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020. Pp. 280. $130.00 (cloth).

Robert G. Ingram, Jason Peacey, and Alex W. Barber, eds. Freedom of Speech, 1500–1850. Politics, Culture and Society in Early Modern Britain. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020. Pp. 280. $130.00 (cloth). - Volume 61 Issue 2

James F. Stark, The Cult of Youth: Anti-Ageing in Modern Britain

In the twentieth-century British marketplace of rejuvenation, consumers could select amongst a multitude of desirable products and therapies offering the prospect of enhancing youthfulness. From goat gland operations for improving sexual potency, electric shocks for zapping wrinkles, to Elizabeth Arden creams that blurred lines between the endocrine and aesthetic, Bioserm advertised as “biology’s gift to women,” along with Théiron’s vegetarian method, the Zander Electropathic Institute, the Overbeck Rejuvenator, Readson’s Duo-Ray Apparatus, the Vienna Youth Mask, and Aspinall’s “Neigeline,” these commodities encapsulate how the quest for youth transformed against the backdrop of Britain’s turbulent interwar years. Indeed, as James Stark argues, “our modern understanding of ageing was, at least in part, shaped by our anxieties about and hopes for both individual and social rejuvenation” (p. 13). The Cult of Youth provides a historical account of the visibility of rejuvenation beyond conventional narratives of its framework as a pseudoscience movement. Within commercial...

Gifted Children, Youth Culture, and Popular Individualism in 1970s and 1980s Britain

AbstractThis article examines a niche space: youth clubs created by small voluntary organizations for ‘gifted children’ in 1970s and 1980s Britain. It asks how individualism shaped everyday life and demonstrates how youth culture was much broader than just the permissiveness that dominates the literature. Gifted children are currently missing from accounts of modern Britain, which focus on mainstream educational categories. Yet, including them in our analysis provides new insights into the diversity of youth cultures that existed in these decades. Drawing on new uncatalogued archives, and centrally poetry, letters, and stories from young people themselves, the article shows that conservative and radical visions co-existed. Young people shaped their own culture, subverting and challenging ideas of themselves as distinctive future leaders.

Children’s Experiences of Welfare in Modern Britain, Siân Pooley and Johnathon Taylor

Children’s Experiences of Welfare in Modern Britain, Siân Pooley and Johnathon Taylor

Repeating Englands: The Transatlantic Archipelago and Early Modern Britain

abstract: In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, English conquest narratives set in the Americas and popular entertainments increasingly represented a unified Britain through the figure of a “repeating England”: an insular refuge in an inchoate ocean of dangers that linked the work of English homemakers to colonial settlers. This article charts that development in two parts. It begins in the late sixteenth century, when conquest writers like George Peckham and John Hutchinson were exchanging the geographic insularity of earlier English self-representation for a model that viewed Englishness not as genealogical or place-based, but as archipelagic and mobile, maintained in and across English homes on both sides of the Atlantic. Englishness here is not a geographic context but a blueprint for producing and possessing an English place through the labors of English “planters.” Jacobean entertainments by Thomas Dekker and John Middleton then drew on this earlier conquest writing to stage Britishness through perspectival techniques that unified subjects in radically different viewing positions and made Britishness a matter of perspective. By following these repeating Englands from page to stage and from Ireland to the Americas, this analysis shows how English writers created a unified Britain from colonial materials and represented Britishness as an extension of settler identity.

Histories of ‘a loathsome disease’: Sexual health in modern Britain

AbstractFrom Victorian preoccupations with prostitution and degeneration to our present‐day problems with antimicrobial resistance and inequalities in access to care, sexual health has been riddled with gendered, racialised, politicised and class‐based meanings. Historians writing from within an increasingly diverse collection of subfields have explored how British attitudes towards, and interventions in, sexual health have changed over the past two centuries. In so doing, they have also addressed a wide range of themes in British social life, politics, gender and sexuality. This article surveys this extensive historiography, highlighting important shifts and reflecting on where historians might fruitfully turn next. Inevitably, there are problematic silences in the scholarship. Historians, overwhelmingly reliant on records compiled by health authorities and the state, have tended to write top‐down histories of sexual health. The lived experiences of ordinary people, especially those on the margins of society, remain frustratingly elusive. Moreover, the same sorts of inequalities that historically undermined care and denied patients a voice continue to shape health outcomes. As such, this article not only surveys the historiography but also makes the case for the important role that historians can play in supporting positive changes in attitudes towards sexual health and the delivery of healthcare today.

Before a New Architecture: Frederick Etchells and the Emergence of Architectural Modernity in Britain, from W.R. Lethaby to Le Corbusier

This article addresses the ways in which the writings of Le Corbusier interacted with modernist architectural thought in Britain. It focusses on Frederick Etchells, who translated Vers une architecture in 1927, and analyses key influences upon his intellectual development and approach to design, namely Roger Fry, Wyndham Lewis, W.R. Lethaby, Christopher Hussey, and John Rodker. It suggests that dedicated study of Etchells as a connective figure in this network aids our understanding of modernism's fraught integration into British culture; that architectural ideas are central to vorticism's engagement with the artist's relationship to society; and that Fry and Lewis deserve recognition for establishing a mature conception of architectural modernity in Britain, alongside Le Corbusier.

Richard Cust and Peter Lake. Gentry Culture and the Politics of Religion: Cheshire on the Eve of Civil War. Politics, Culture and Society in Early Modern Britain. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020. Pp. 392. $130.00 (cloth).

Richard Cust and Peter Lake. Gentry Culture and the Politics of Religion: Cheshire on the Eve of Civil War. Politics, Culture and Society in Early Modern Britain. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020. Pp. 392. $130.00 (cloth). - Volume 61 Issue 1

Chris R. Kyle and Jason Peacey, eds. Connecting Centre and Locality: Political Communication in Early Modern England. Politics, Culture and Society in Early Modern Britain. Manchester. Manchester University Press, 2020. Pp. 256. $130.00 (cloth).

Chris R. Kyle and Jason Peacey, eds. Connecting Centre and Locality: Political Communication in Early Modern England. Politics, Culture and Society in Early Modern Britain. Manchester. Manchester University Press, 2020. Pp. 256. $130.00 (cloth). - Volume 61 Issue 1

The Origin of the “Anglo-Saxon” Myth: Early Medieval England in the Historical Culture of Medieval and Early Modern Britain

The concepts rooted in the history of medieval Europe play a major role in modern socio-political discourse. Among those are the terms “Anglo-Saxons” and “Anglo-Saxon”. As the name of German-speaking peoples who settled in Britain in the fifth to seventh centuries, the ethnonym “Anglo-Saxons” emerged already in the Early Middle Ages. Starting from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when English antiquarians began a systematic study of the past of their country, the ethnonyms used by early medieval authors were interpreted precisely as designations of communities similar to the European peoples of the modern times. Throughout the nineteenth century the ethnonym “Anglo-Saxons” was used more and more often in its political and cultural meaning, at the same time, ethnic understanding spun off from it. There emerged an idea of the “Anglo-Saxon race”, which, depending on the specific context, began to be contrasted with the “Celtic”, “Latin”, “African” or “Indian” races. The idea of the emergence of a single English nation as a result of the mutual assimilation of the Saxons and Normans became the cornerstone of the Whig model of history that dominated the Victorian era.

Loyalty to the Monarchy in Late Medieval and Early Modern Britain, c.1400–1688. Matthew Ward and Matthew Hefferan, eds. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. xv + 302 pp. €93.59.

Loyalty to the Monarchy in Late Medieval and Early Modern Britain, c.1400–1688. Matthew Ward and Matthew Hefferan, eds. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. xv + 302 pp. €93.59.

“Stop Giving Us the Negatives of the Other Side’s Aims”: The EU Referendum Through Letters to the Editor

ABSTRACT The referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU gave citizens the final say on one of the most controversial political issues in modern Britain, crossing social classes, traditional political cleavages, and political parties. In an attempt to examine how the public made sense of Brexit and its potential consequences, we analyse all letters to the editor discussing Brexit or the campaign published in British daily national newspapers in the two months before the referendum. Through a content analysis of 1419 letters, we examine the main themes, capturing the key concerns, criticisms, and political aspirations expressed by citizens. Leave messages largely dominated in Leave newspapers, whereas a wider range of voices were represented in Remain titles. Leave voices, therefore, resonated more strongly throughout the letters. Our analysis points to changing forms of public debate: in a debate dominated by negativity, readers mainly argued against leaving or remaining in the EU, as opposed to arguing in favour of these options, to the extent that some readers expressed frustration with the negativity of the campaigns, and of media coverage. Ultimately, this study tentatively explores whether these fora constituted arenas for debate, or off-line echo-chambers.