Liberty and Authority in Victorian Britain [Hardcover]

Victorian Britain is often considered as the high point of laissez-faire, the place and the time when people were most free to make their own lives without the aid or interference of the State. This book, by leading historians of nineteenth-century state and society, asks to what extent that was true and, to the extent that it was, how it worked.

1. Introduction: State and Society in Victorian Britain,Peter Mandler
I: The State
2. The Powers of the Victorian State,Philip Harling
3. The Victorian State in Comparative Perspective,Peter Baldwin
II: Liberties
4. Liberalism and Liberty,J. P. Parry
5. Radicalism and Liberty,E. F. Biagini
6. Women and Liberty,Helen Rogers
III: Authorities
7. The Authority of the Law,Margot C. Finn
8. The Authority of the Church,Arthur Burns
IV: Disciplines
9. Market Disciplines,Paul Johnson
10. Moral Disciplines,Boyd Hilton
Index

Occasionally, a collection comes along that is so well conceived and coherent, its contributions so uniformly high in quality, as to merit publication in a format that would make it accessible to a wide audience. This is one such volume. --Susan Pedersen,The Historian

As a whole editorial authority and authorial liberty have compined to produce a clear and coherent set of essays that should commend itself to a wide range of readers. --Anthony Howe,American Historical Review

Educated at Oxford and Harvard universities,Peter Mandlerhas taught British history on both sides of the Atlantic and since 2001 at Cambridge University, where he is Reader in Modern British History and a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College. His most recent book is a history of the idea of the English national character, 'from Burke to Blair'. He is currently workinglÃs