Politics

Human society is always surrounded by politics of some sort. Whether it is the basic negotiation of leadership and obedience of rules for clans or soldiers or, the more sophisticated set up of the modern world the relationship of control and decision making is always around. Grouped together in this strand are articles and podcasts covering the systems of the ancient world in Greece and Rome, alongside the stories of revolution in Europe, the creation of treaties and alliances and the arguments amongst political parties today.

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  • Ending the French Revolution

    Article

    Malcolm Crook discusses why it was so difficult to end the most famous revolution of the eighteenth century and why it led to bloodshed and absolutism.

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  • Faction in Tudor England

    Article

    'This wicked Tower must be fed with blood' - W. S. Gilbert's dialogue sums up the popular myth of Tudor England. This pamphlet looks at the reality, a society and politics necessarily divided into rival factions by the pulls of patronage, local loyalty and the implications of personal monarchy, and...

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  • Home Rule for Ireland - For and against

    Article

    At a time when the United Kingdom continues to review its internal constitutional arrangements, Matthew Kelly explores how this constitutional debate can be traced back to Gladstone's decision to promote Home Rule for Ireland and how these proposals evolved over time and were challenged. Irish political history decisively entered a...

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  • How did the Civil Rights movement change America?

    Article

    In 1984 Jimmy Carter reflected on growing up in the segregated South. He recalled that, as a young child, he, like many white children, had had an African American child as his closest friend. The two children spent all their play time together. One day they travelled on the train...

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  • Irish Unionism 1885-1922

    Article

    It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of Irish unionism for British and Irish politics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The movement was supported almost exclusively by Irish Protestants who were of Anglo-Irish or Scotch-Irish descent and who comprised roughly one-quarter of the population of Ireland. Its...

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  • Jacobitism

    Article

    In recent years, the debate over the nature, extent, and influence of the Jacobite movement during the 70 years following the Glorious Revolution of 1688 has become one of the new growth industries among professional historians, spawning scholarly quarrels almost as ferocious as those which characterised ‘the Cause' itself.The term...

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  • Limited Monarchy in Great Britain in the Eighteenth Century

    Article

    There was hardly anything in Great Britain which political thinkers on the continent of Europe in the eighteenth century admired more than its limited monarchy. But what were the limitations? Were they deliberate or not? Were they effected by acts of parliament or by the silent encroachments of usage? Did...

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  • Parliament, people or privilege: Do we need a better understanding of constitutional history?

    Article

    Join our panel, including Dr Alix Green, Professor Tony Badger and Professor Justin Champion as they discuss how recent polls and election results have confounded many pundits. Do calls to ‘give us our country back’ or ‘return our sovereignty’ suggest that many people in liberal democracies need a better understanding of...

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  • Podcast: Re-imagining Democracy

    Article

    This podcast feature Professor Mark Philp of the University of Warwick discussing how people's perceptions of democracy changed between 1750 and 1850 and is based on the findings of the Re-imagining democracy project, begun in 2005 by Joanna Innes and Mark Philp. Re-imagining Democracy: 1750-1850 1. Introduction. Democracy from negative...

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  • Polychronicon 162: Reinterpreting the May 1968 events in France

    Article

    As Kristin Ross has persuasively argued, by the 1980s interpretations of the French events of May 1968 had shrunk to a narrow set of received ideas around student protest, labelled by Chris Reynolds a ‘doxa’. Media discourse is dominated by a narrow range of former participants labelled ‘memory barons’ –...

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  • Punk, Politics and the collapse of consensus in Britain

    Article

    2012 Annual Conference LectureShot by both sides: Punk, Politics and the collapse of consensus in BritainMatthew Worley: Reader in History, University of ReadingThis paper examines the way in which organisations of the far left and far right endeavoured to appropriate elements of British youth culture to validate their analysis of...

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  • Radicalism and its Results, 1760-1837

    Article

    Radicalism with a large "R", unlike Conservatism with a large "C" and Liberalism with a large "L", is not a historical term of even proximate precision. There was never a Radical Party with a national organization, local associations, or a treasury. But there were, and there are, "Radicals", generally qualified...

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  • Reinventing the Charter: from Sir Edward Coke to 'freeborn John'

    Article

    When was Magna Carta launched on its modern career as a symbol of freedom and liberty? Justin Champion looks at the role of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century lawyers and politicians in shaping how we see the Charter today. ‘For every person who knows what the contents of Magna Carta actually...

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  • Religion and Party in Late Stuart England

    Article

    The second English Revolution of the seventeenth century, the Revolution of 1688, ushered in during the next twenty-five years a series of changes which were to be profoundly important to the ultimate development of the country. Most conspicuously, the reigns of William III and Anne released Englishmen - though not...

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  • Religion and Politics 1559-1642

    Article

    It is a truism to say that religion and politics were inextricably mixed in the seventeenth century. "So natural" wrote Richard Hooker,"is the union of religion with Justice, that we may boldly deem there is neither where both are not" Sir John Eliot observed that in the House of Commons...

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  • The British Communist Party 1920-1945

    Article

    With the collapse of communism in Russia and Eastern Europe, archival material is becoming available not only on these regimes but also on communist parties in the West. Matthew Worley surveys the latest writing on the Communist Party of Great Britain. Since the collapse of Communism, a number of books...

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  • The Early Mediaeval State

    Article

    In order to define the constitution of a state, theorists and historians still apply Aristotle's categories; monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. This method has obvious limitations; there can be no doubt that the formal sovereignty either of an individual or of a minority or a majority does not of itself suffice...

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  • The Evolution of the British Electoral System 1832-1987

    Article

    During the last 20 years our perspective on the great Victorian question of parliamentary reform has noticeably changed. We have acquired a comprehensive picture of the organisation and political socialisation of those who won the vote; and some interesting debates have developed about the social characteristics of the electors and...

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  • The French Wars of Religion

    Article

    This classic pamphlet takes you through the French reformation, the first, second and third war of religion, The St Bartholomew's Day massacre and the Fourth War, the later wars, the Catholic League, Henry IV, the nobility, the towns, confessional violence, social contexts and warfare and its costs.

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  • The Great Charter: Then and now

    Article

    Magna Carta is a document not only of national but of international importance. Alexander Lock shows how its name still has power all over the world, especially in the United States. Although today only three of its clauses remain on the statute book, Magna Carta still flourishes as a potent...

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