The Shaping of Modern Britain: Identity, Industry and Empire 1780 - 1914 - Softcover

Evans, Eric

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1408225646 ISBN 13: 9781408225646

Publisher: Routledge, 2011

Synopsis

In this wide-ranging history of modern Britain, Eric Evans surveys every aspect of the period in which Britain was transformed into the world's first industrial power. By the end of the nineteenth century, Britain was still ruled by wealthy landowners, but the world over which they presided had been utterly transformed. It was an era of revolutionary change unparalleled in Britain - yet that change was achieved without political revolution.

 

Ranging across the developing empire, and dealing with such central institutions as the church, education, health, finance and rural and urban life, The Shaping of Modern Britain provides an unparallelled account of Britain's rise to superpower status. Particular attention is given to the Great Reform Act of 1832, and the implications of the 1867 Reform Act are assessed. The book discusses:

 

-         the growing role of the central state in domestic policy making

-         the emergence of the Labour party

-         the Great Depression

-         the acquisition of a vast territorial empire

 

Comprehensive, informed and engagingly written, The Shaping of Modern Britain will be an invaluable introduction for students of this key period of British history.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

In 1780, Britain was losing the American War of Independence and at war with both France and Spain, two of the great powers of Europe. Constitutional crisis, perhaps even revolution, seemed imminent. Yet in 1914, Britain entered the First World War confidently, if reluctantly, having established itself as the world’s most powerful nation. Why was Britain so successful for so long?

 

Drawing on the experience of more than forty years of historical research and teaching in the field of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British history, Professor Eric Evans addresses this question as part of a fresh, analytical and wide-ranging history of modern Britain. He examines every aspect of the period 1780–1914, in which Britain was transformed into the world's first industrial power, and explains how and why a distinctively modern British state developed as it did.

 

Three key factors made Britain the world’s most powerful and influential nation in the nineteenth century: its increasingly clearly articulated sense of an imperial, as well as a national, identity; its status as the world’s first, and most advanced, industrial society; and its increasingly representative political structures at both local and national level. Dealing with key issues such as political change, urban and rural society, religion, education and a rapidly developing economy, the book discusses:

 

• the growing role of the state, especially in the formulation of social policy;

• the expansion of political representation and changes in party politics;

• the golden era of manufacturing industry linked to Britain’s role as the world’s financial capital;

• the acquisition of the largest territorial empire in modern history.

 

Comprehensive, informed and engagingly written, The Shaping of Modern Britain will be an invaluable guide for students of this key period of British history.

 

Eric J. Evans is Emeritus Professor of Modern History at Lancaster University and the author of a number of seminal books on the political and social history of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain, including The Forging of the Modern State (3rd edn, 2001).

 

About the Author:

Eric J. Evans is Professor Emeritus of History at Lancaster University and author of a number of seminal books on the political and social history of eighteenth and nineteenth century Britain, including The Forging of the Modern State: Early Industrial Britain, 1783-1870 (third edition 2001) and Britain Before the Reform Act (second edition 2008).

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1408225646
• ISBN 13: 9781408225646
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 560