A History of Modern Britain: 1714 to the Present / Edition 2

by Ellis Wasson

Overview

Now available in a fully-revised and updated second edition, A History of Modern Britain: 1714 to the Present provides a comprehensive survey of the social, political, economic and cultural history of Great Britain from the Hanoverian succession to the present day.

• Places Britain in a global context, charting the rise and fall of the British empire and the influence of imperialism on the social, economic, and political developments of the home country
• Includes revised sections on imperialism and the industrial revolution that have been updated to reflect recent scholarship, a more reflective view on New Labour since its demise, and an all new section on the performance of the Conservative – Lib/Dem coalition that came into office in 2010
• Features illustrations, maps, an up-to-date bibliography, a full list of Prime Ministers, a genealogy of the royal family, and a comprehensive glossary explaining uniquely British terms, acronyms, and famous figures
• Spans topics as diverse as the slave trade, the novels of Charles Dickens, the Irish Potato Famine, the legalization of homosexuality, coalmines in South Wales, Antarctic exploration, and the invention of the computer
• Includes extensive reference to historiography

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781118869017
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	01/26/2016
Edition description:	2nd Revised ed.
Pages:	464
Product dimensions:	6.70(w) x 9.50(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

ELLIS WASSON is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of History at the University of Delaware. He is the author of seven books, including Aristocracy and the Modern World (2006) and Born to Rule: British Political Elites (2000), and he has published more than two dozen articles on the history of British politics and European landed society in scholarly journals.

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Table of Contents

List of Figures ix

List of Tables xiii

List of Maps xiv

List of Biographies xv

Preface xvi

Acknowledgments xxii

Part I Uniting the Kingdoms 1

Chapter 1: The British Isles in 1714 3

Chapter 2: A New Beginning, 1714–62 41

Chapter 3: War and Revolution, 1763–1814 71

Part II The British Century 99

Chapter 4: A United Kingdom, 1815 101

Chapter 5: Reform, 1816–41 138

Chapter 6: Imperial Britain, 1842–84 167

Chapter 7: New Century, 1885–1913 201

Part III Dividing the Kingdoms 233

Chapter 8: The United Kingdom, 1914 235

Chapter 9: War and Peace and War, 1915–39 264

Chapter 10: The Warfare and Welfare State, 1940–79 297

Chapter 11: "New" Britain, 1980–2014 333

The Transformation of Britain 1688–1713 000
Available online at: www.wiley.com/go/wasson

Notes 365

Chronology 390

Glossary 395

Bibliography 403

List of Prime Ministers 412

Genealogy of the Royal Family 415

Index 417

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Ellis Wasson's history of modern Britain is written with style and wit, with insight and subtlety. He combines wide reading with clarity of exposition, and has a rare ability to use telling example and personal stories to explain general points. His book offers an outstanding introduction to British history in all its guises - political, social, economic, cultural and intellectual - and brings alive another society."
–Martin Daunton, University of Cambridge

"Drawing on a vast range of recent scholarship in disparate fields – including politics, society, culture, national identity, economics, gender and religion – this carefully crafted volume provides a remarkably accessible yet academically significant overview of Britain’s last 300 years. Attractively jargon free and peppered with well-chosen anecdotes and biographical details, it is one of those rare books that will prove invaluable to students and experts alike."
–Phillip Salmon, The History of Parliament

"It is an extraordinarily well-organized account; cleverly, even slyly, written to engage students at all levels. Wasson’s felicity with recent scholarship makes this the best Modern Britain text to appear in decades."
–Ronald K. Huch, Eastern Kentucky University