Christopher Harvie and Colin Matthew were both brought up and educated in Edinburgh. Harvie went via the Open University to become Professor of British and Irish Studies at Tübingen in Germany, becoming a historian of modern Scotland and North Sea oil; from Oxford, Matthew edited the Gladstone Diaries, wrote an award-winning life of the Victorian statesman, and became Editor of the New Dictionary of National Biography in 1992. Colin Matthew died in 1999.

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• 1. Reflections on the revolutions ; 2. Industrial development ; 3. Reform and religion ; 4. The wars abroad ; 5. Roads to freedom ; 6. Coping with reform ; 7. Unless the Lord build the city ; 8. The ringing grooves of change ; 9. Politics and diplomacy: Palmerstons years ; 10. Incorporation ; 11. Free trade: an industrial economy rampant ; 12. A shifting population: town and country ; 13. The masses and the classes: the urban worker ; 14. Clerks and commerce: the lower middle class ; 15. The propertied classes ; 16. Pomp and circumstance ; 17. A great change in manners ; 18. Villa Tories: the Conservative resurgence ; 19. Ireland, Scotland, Wales: Home Rule frustrated ; 20. Reluctant imperialists? ; 21. The fin-de-siecle reaction: new views of the State ; 22. Old Liberalism, New Liberalism, Labourism, and tariff reform ; 23. Edwardian years: a crisis of the State contained ; 24. Your English summers done ; Further reading ; Chronology ; Prime ministers 1789-1914 ; Index

Christopher Harvie and Colin Matthew were both brought up and educated in Edinburgh. Harvie went via the Open University to become Professor of British and Irish Studies at Tübingen in Germany, becoming a historian of modern Scotland and North Sea oil; from Oxford, Matthew edited the Gladstone Diaries, wrote an award-winning life of the Victorian statesman, and became Editor of the New Dictionary of National Biography in 1992. Colin Matthew died in 1999.

Select Guide Rating

• 1. Reflections on the revolutions ; 2. Industrial development ; 3. Reform and religion ; 4. The wars abroad ; 5. Roads to freedom ; 6. Coping with reform ; 7. Unless the Lord build the city ; 8. The ringing grooves of change ; 9. Politics and diplomacy: Palmerstons years ; 10. Incorporation ; 11. Free trade: an industrial economy rampant ; 12. A shifting population: town and country ; 13. The masses and the classes: the urban worker ; 14. Clerks and commerce: the lower middle class ; 15. The propertied classes ; 16. Pomp and circumstance ; 17. A great change in manners ; 18. Villa Tories: the Conservative resurgence ; 19. Ireland, Scotland, Wales: Home Rule frustrated ; 20. Reluctant imperialists? ; 21. The fin-de-siecle reaction: new views of the State ; 22. Old Liberalism, New Liberalism, Labourism, and tariff reform ; 23. Edwardian years: a crisis of the State contained ; 24. Your English summers done ; Further reading ; Chronology ; Prime ministers 1789-1914 ; Index