Social

At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, writes Arthur Calder-Marshall, London became a centre of reforming agitation against poverty and political mismanagement.

H.J. Perkin traces the development of England's long love affair with newspapers.

Michael Jenkins describes how the use to which the nobles put their power and wealth was responsible for the violence of the Revolution in 1917.

For the English upper and middle classes, writes John Burnett, the nineteenth century was a period of huge and ostentatious meals; but “only during the last twenty years has the population as a whole been economically able to achieve an adequate diet...”

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.

W. Bruce Lincoln reflects on how Russian statesman Nikolay Milyutin became a chief architect of great liberal reforms.

Admired by Lord Melbourne; and, later, the author of two popular novels, Emily Eden was one of the liveliest of correspondents. By Prudence Hannay.

Fourteen years before the French Revolution, writes Felice Harcourt, the son of a Belgian nobleman joined the court of the Bourbons.

Michael Glover investigates the early modern sources of the English reputation as the most indefatigable writers of letters in the world.

Alan D. Dyer describes how Britain’s industrial development began when coal replaced wood during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.