Politics of Patriotism

Between the 1830s and 1880s European problems had a profound impact on British politics. Jonathan Parry examines the effect on the British Liberal movement of the most significant of these, such as the 1848 Revolutions, the unification of Italy, the Franco-Prussian War and the Eastern Question, arguing that these European problems made patriotism a major political question: governments were judged by their success in promoting British interests abroad, but also by the purity, potency and 'Englishness' of the political values they represented. This volume makes a major contribution towards understanding three important aspects of nineteenth-century British history: British attitudes to Europe, contemporary notions of national identity, and the nature and dynamic of British Liberalism. Setting foreign and domestic policy discussions in a patriotic framework, Parry offers an analysis of the ideas that influenced the Liberal political coalition and the turning-points affecting its vigour and unity as a political movement.

Review of the hardback: '… a work of stupendous learning that demonstrates on every page a sovereign knowledge of the writings of familiar and unfamiliar authors … it offers an exemplary case-study of the interaction between the awareness of competition in the international sphere and domestic initiatives in the nineteenth century.' Sehepunkte, Review of the hardback: 'In a brief review, one cannot hope to do full justice to the complexity of Parry's analysis, which, like his other books, deserves to be greeted as a foundational text in the historiography of Victorian Liberalism.[1] Indeed, at this point in his scholarly career, Parry may well know more about Victorian Liberalism than anyone else on the globe.' H-Net Book Review, Review of the hardback: 'A skilful and deeply knowledgeable account of Victorian political culture.' H-Albion, Review of the hardback: 'Parry's volume deserves enormous respect and will no doubt generate genuinely creative controversy.' Frank Turner, Yale University

Jonathan Parry is Reader in Modern British History at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Pembroke College.