New Frontiers – serie

Irish Home Rule considers the pre-eminent issue in British politics during the late nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries. It is the first account to explain the various self-government plans, to place these in context and examine the motives for putting the schemes forward. The book distinguishes between moral and material home rulers, making the point that the first appealed especially to outsiders, some Protestants and the intelligentsia, who saw in self-government a means to reconcile Ireland’s antagonistic traditions. In contrast, material home rulers viewed a Dublin Parliament as a forum of Catholic interests. This account appraises the home rule movement from a fresh angle, distinguishing it from the usual division drawn between physical force and constitutional nationalists It maintains that an ideological continuity runs from Young Ireland, the Fenians, the early home rulers including Isaac Butt and Charles Stewart Parnell, to the Gaelic Revivalists to the Men of 1916. These nationalists are distinguishable from material home rulers not on the basis of methods or strategy but by a fundamental ideological cleavage.

Examines the nature of the first regime ever to have effective control of the British Isles and the impact that it had on England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and on Britain’s international reputation. One of the few stuides to view the period as one of acheivement rather than merely a reactionary regime. Examines the aspirations of the Cromwellian Protectorate and underlines their committemnt to a radical vision, despite the pressures and crises that the regime faced. Examines the international dimension of the rules of Oliver and Richard Cromwell. Containing many key documents of the period and a bibliographical essay, considers A and AS level requirements as well as being valuable to undergraduates and general readers.

Re-examines the controversial policy of appeasement. The text suggests that the mood of the age in British society served to support appeasement, by analyzing the cluster of military, strategic, imperial and economic forces which served to justify it. The book argues that, when Neville Chamberlain came to power, appeasement was part of a broad consensus in British society to avoid a second world war. It provides an interpretation of Chamberlain's conduct by showing how he used and abused the mood of the age to justify a selfish and ambitious policy which was idealogically prejudiced. Yet, when Hitler entered Prague in March 1939, the public mood changed, and Chamberlain found himself a prisoner of a new mood which forced him to make a tactical and half-hearted attempt to stand up to Hitler for which he had no enthusiasm.

The Swiss Reformation was a seminal event of the sixteenth century which created a Protestant culture whose influence spread across Europe from Transylvania to Scotland. Offers the first comprehensive study of the Swiss Reformation and argues that the movement must be understood in terms of the historical evolution of the Swiss Confederation, its unique and fluid structures, the legacy of the mercenary trade, the distinctive character of Swiss theology, the powerful influence of Renaissance humanism, and, most decisively, the roles played by the dominant figures, Huldrych Zwingli and Heinrich Bullinger. Marked by astounding creative energy, incendiary preaching, burning political passions, peasant revolts, and breath-taking scholarship, as well as by painful divisions, civil war, executions and dashed hopes, the story of the Swiss Reformation is told with extensive use of primary sources. Explores the narrative of events before turning to consider themes such as the radical opposition, church and community, daily life in the Confederation, cultural achievements and the Swiss place in the wider European Reformation world.

This work is a detailed examination of principal themes in the political history of late 18th- and early 19th-century Britain. It evaluates much recent research, links the politics of the elite with the politics of the people and seeks to explain significant developments with reference to both their long- and short-term causes. Among the issues addressed are the relative powers of crown, cabinet and parliament between 1760 and 1832; the impact on domestic politics of revolution and war abroad; the growth of radicalism and popular political activity; agitation for reform and the responses of government; the rise of party; the connections between extra-parliamentary pressure and instability; at the centre of power.

French society in revolution aims to retrieve the social history of the French Revolution from unjustified neglect.This study examines both the structural and cultural elements behind the breakdown of the eighteenth-century monarchic state and its aris. . . .

How and why did the Nazis seize power in Germany? Nearly seventy years on, the question remains heated and important discoveries continue to challenge long standing assumptions. Beginning with an overview of the historical context within which Nazism grew, looking at the foreign relations, politics and society of Weimar and in particular at the role of the elites in the rise of Nazism. The book questions the anatomy of Nazism itself: What lent Nazi ideology its coherence and credibility? What distinguished the Nazi’s programme from their competitors’ and how did they project it so effectively? How was Hitler able to put together and fund an organisation so quickly and effectively that it could launch a sustained assault on Weimar? Who supported the Nazis and what were their motives? Where, precisely, does Nazism belong in the history of Europe?. Since the publication of the first edition, important new works have appeared and this new scholarship has been incorporated into the text.