“Masterly. The debate over the tumultuous years before 1914 has occupied historians ever since George Dangerfield published The Strange Death of Liberal England in 1935. Vernon Bogdanor gives a magisterial rebuttal, demonstrating the robustness of Britain’s institutions at a time of political change. He provides a fascinating tour d’horizon of the Edwardian political scene. This must be a definitive account.”

Professor Jane Ridley, author of George V: Never a Dull Moment
“The Strange Survival of Liberal Britain is a masterly tour de force, a triumph of scholarly achievement, sympathetic in its treatment of the subject, eminently wise in its judgement and invariably fair in its verdicts. It purrs along like a Rolls-Royce engine as it takes the reader through the changing landscape of a crucial period in the making of modern Britain.”

Professor T. G. Otte, author of Statesman of Europe: A Life of Sir Edward Grey

The turbulent years of 1895 to 1914 changed Britain’s political landscape for ever. They saw a transition from aristocratic rule to mass politics and heralded a new agenda which still dominates today. The issues of the period – economic modernisation, social welfare and equality, secondary and technical education, a new role for Britain in the world – were complex and difficult. Indeed, they proved so thorny that despite the efforts of the Edwardians they remain among the most pressing problems we face in the twenty-first century.

The period has often been seen as one of decadence, of the strange death of liberal Britain. In contrast, Vernon Bogdanor believes that the robustness of Britain’s parliamentary and political institutions and her liberal political culture, with the commitment to rational debate and argument, were powerful enough to carry her through one of the most trying periods of her history and so make possible the remarkable survival of liberal Britain.

In this wide-ranging and sometimes controversial survey, one of our pre-eminent political historians dispels the popular myths that have grown up about this critical period in Britain’s story and argues that it set the scene for much that is laudable about our nation today.

Vernon Bogdanor CBE is professor of government at the Institute of Contemporary British History, King’s College London. He was for many years professor of government at Oxford University. In 2019, he was a visiting professor at Yale University. He is a fellow of the British Academy, the Royal Historical Society and the Academy of Social Sciences and an honorary fellow of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies. He is a frequent contributor to TV, radio and the press and was the BBC’s academic expert on the 2010 election programme and the 2016 referendum programme.