G. R. Searle's absorbing narrative history breaks conventional
chronological barriers to carry the reader from England in 1886,
the apogee of the Victorian era with the nation poised to celebrate
the empress queen's golden jubilee, to 1918, as the 'war to end all
wars' drew to a close leaving England to come to term with its
price - above all in terms of human life, but also in the general
sense that things would never be the same again. This was an age of
extremes: a period of imperial pomp and circumstance, with a
political elite preoccupied with display and ceremony, alongside
the growing cult of the simple life; the zenith of imperialism with
its idealization of war on the one hand, the start of the Labour
Party, a socialist renaissance, and welfare politics on the other;
and a radical challenging of traditional gender stereotypes in the
face of the prevailing cult of masculinity. Under Professor
Searle's historical microscope, all the details of daily life
spring into sharp relief. Half-forgotten figures such as Edward
Carpenter, Vesta Tilley, and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman take
their place on stage beside Oscar Wilde, the Pankhursts, and Lloyd
George. Motoring and aviation, to become such an intrinsic part of
life within the next decades, had their beginnings in this period
as pastimes for the rich. From the wretched slums of England's
great cities to their bustling docks and factories, from the grand
portals of Westminster to the violent political challenges of the
Ulster Unionists and the militant suffrage movement, from
Blackpool's tower and beach packed with holidaymakers to the
trenches of the Western Front, the energy, creativity, and often
destructive turmoil of the years 1886-1918 are brought into focus
in this magisterial history. THE NEW OXFORD HISTORY OF ENGLAND The
aim of the New Oxford History of England is to give an account of
the development of the country over time. It is hard to treat that
development as just the history which unfolds within the precise
boundaries of England, and a mistake to suggest that this implies a
neglect of the histories of the Scots, Irish, and Welsh. Yet the
institutional core of the story which runs from Anglo-Saxon times
to our own is the story of a state-structure built round the
English monarchy and its effective successor, the Crown in
Parliament. While the emphasis of individual volumes in the series
will vary, the ultimate outcome is intended to be a set of standard
and authoritative histories, embodying the scholarship of a
generation.
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