Political

The English Middle Classes in the Eighteenth Century

E.N. Williams describes how English merchants and manufacturers amassed huge fortunes, enlarged their political influence, and raised their social status, while many trades of the previous century became dignified and lucrative professions.

Mikhail Speransky

Michael Jenkins describes a reforming minister of genius and, according to Napoleon, ‘the only clear head in Russia’; Mikhail Speransky fell from power in the year 1812.

Lenin in London

Lionel Kochan describes how two of the most important of Russian Revolutionary Conferences were held in Edwardian London.

Gladstone and Education

The Education Act of 1870 was a landmark in Liberal policy, writes Paul Adelman, but it failed to satisfy the Nonconformist conscience of many Liberal supporters.

Gandhi and the Viceroys

From the first British Viceroy whom he encountered Gandhi received a decoration; the last, ten years ago, sat beside his funeral pyre. During the stormy intervening period he came into contact, and often into conflict, with six others; Francis Watson describes how each relationship marked a different stage in the long historical process that culminated in 1947.

Chamfort: A Man for Our Time

‘Human society must be begun again’, wrote Chamfort, who, after delighting the Court and the fashionable world, became an eloquent prophet of the Revolution. By Alaric Jacob.