The Strange Death of Liberal England

At the beginning of the twentieth century Britain's empire spanned the globe, her economy was strong and the political system seemed to be immune to the ills which afflicted so many other countries. After a resounding electoral triumph in 1906 the Liberals once again formed the government of the most powerful nation on earth, yet within a few years the army had mutinied, industrial unrest was rife, civil war loomed in Ireland and the proceedings of 'the mother of parliaments' were reduced to little more than farce.

The Strange Death of Liberal England is the classic study of this rapid collapse of a self-confident body politic. Three factors combined to bring Liberal England to its knees. The Home Rule crisis brought Ireland to the brink of civil war and led to the mutiny at the Curragh, while the campaign for women's suffrage created wisespread civil disorder and discredited the legal and penal systems, and an unprecedented strike wave swept the land.

The years before the First World War are often presented as a golden age, but this stylish and witty history shows the turbulence of an alleged belle époque to have been the writing on the wall for a nation which had for too long thought of itself as all-powerful.