On The Spot: Emily Jones
‘Ideas don’t do things; people do.’
Why are you a historian of Victorian and Edwardian political thought?
I’ve always been fascinated by the 19th century, primarily as a voracious novel reader during my teenage years.
What’s the most important lesson history has taught you?
Ideas don’t do things; people do. Powerful ideas are constructed and reworked.
Which book has had the greatest influence on you?
Any of the US Cold War books on Burke, such as Russell Kirk’s The Conservative Mind.
What book in your field should everyone read?
The British Constitution: a Very Short History by Martin Loughlin.
Which moment would you most like to go back to?
Either April 1886, when Gladstone introduced the second reading of the Home Rule Bill, or Seattle c.1990.
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