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Loading... Perilous Question: Reform or Revolution? Britain on the Brink, 1832 (original 2013; edition 2013)by Antonia Fraser
Work InformationPerilous Question: Reform or Revolution? Britain on the Brink, 1832 by Antonia Fraser (2013)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Bit confusing. You can see she's a historical biographer, rather than a full-blown historian, in that there are neat pen portraits of a thousand characters, major and minor, but we are left short on analysis of the underlying issues and there's some lack of clarity about the process of getting the Great Reform onto the statute book. for example, if the Whigs are just as much landed grandees as the Tories, why are they keener on reform? Do they see the storm clouds of revolution more clearly, or are they more idealistic? Or a mix of both? How real was the threat of revolution anyway? What were the people threatening disorder expecting to get: votes for themselves ? Antonia Fraser's history of the Parliamentary Reform Act of 1832 under William IV — Victoria would become queen five years later — is an excellent prologue to the early Victorian period. (In fact, some historians date the Victorian Era to 1832's passage of the Reform Act rather than to Victoria's ascension five years later.) Fraser does a very good job of making a reader comfortable with the names and identities of parliamentarians with whom contemporary readers might not be too familiar, but at the same time she isn't condescending. I was especially interested in getting a feel for who Lord Brougham was, because he's extensively mentioned in the first volume of Harriet Martineau's Autobiography (but in a way that's very confusing to a reader). As a result of getting a better feel for these pre-Victorian personalities, I may go on to read Martineau's three-volume The Thirty Years' Peace, 1816-1846. Interesting read about the debates and politicing around the reform of voting in the UK in 1832. It's interesting to see how complicated the thinking about it was. Getting rid of some of the rotten boroughs (as parodied wonderfully in the Third Blackadder series); increasing the voting and changing the landscape of UK voting. It was an interesting read and brought forward some of the thinking of some people of the time. Worth reading to see more of the just-pre-Victorian era. You could see where some of the politics and policies of the Victorian era came from no reviews | add a review
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Presents a re-creation of the tempestuous two-year period in Britain's history leading up to the passing of the Great Reform Bill in 1832. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)941.075History and Geography Europe British Isles Historical periods of British Isles 1714-1837 Period of House of Hanover William IV 1830-1837LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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The first parts of the book can feel like one capsule biography after the other, of aristocratic British lords and MPs with a tendency to blend together. But Fraser has a lively pen and an eye for good anecdotes that keep things moving even when the exposition threatens to overwhelm the narrative. Accessible for general history fans as well as specialists, and recommended. ( )