british history recommendations

i) This is a VERY difficult bill to fill, as political histories are usually segmented. The best is probably Martin Pugh's "State and Society: A Social and Political History of Britain 1870-1997", though Norman Lowe's "Mastering Modern British History" is also good (though given that it's designed for A-levels it's better as a primer than as a read).

ii) There have been a number of surveys of Gladstone & Disraeli's political relationship, such as Paul Adelman's "Gladstone, Disraeli and Later Victorian Politics," but for my money the works to turn to are biographies. For Disraeli, the standard is Robert Blake's superb "Disraeli," while for Gladstone there's Roy Jenkins' readable "Gladstone" and H.C.G. Matthew's insightful "Gladstone, 1809-1898."

iii) Of the many good histories of the British Empire, the best are Lawrence James's "The Rise and Fall of the British Empire," which is a good popular account, and "The British Empire, 1558-1995" by Trevor O. Lloyd, which is more of a textbook survey.

Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power by Niall Ferguson.

I have not had a chance to read this book yet, but a friend whose opinion I trust recommended it.

Also Simon Schama's History of Britain series is also very good.

I'll second this.

is Lawrence James's 'Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India' also a good'un?

are E Hobsbawn (I think)'s 'The Age of Revolution', 'The Age of Empire', 'The Age of Capital', etc any good? (i want to like them bcz the 20th-c one has Chaplin with the globe on the front)

Title: The strange death of Liberal England.
Author: Dangerfield, George, 1904-

Title: The crisis of imperialism, 1865-1915 / Richard Shannon.
Publisher: London : Hart-Davis, MacGibbon, 1974.

Title: Disraeli and his world / Christopher Hibbert.
Author: Hibbert, Christopher, 1924-
Publisher: New York : Scribner, c1978.

Title: Disraeli, Gladstone, and the Eastern question; a study in diplomacy and party politics, by R. W. Seton-Watson.
Publisher: London, Macmillan and co., limited, 1935.

Title: Gladstone, a progress in politics / by Peter Stansky.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Boston : Little, Brown, c1979.

Title: Gladstone, Whiggery, and the Liberal Party, 1874-1886 / T.A. Jenkins.
Publisher: Oxford [Oxfordshire] : Clarendon Press ; New York : Oxford University Press, 1988.

Title: The liberal ascendancy, 1830-1886 / T.A. Jenkins.
Publisher: New York : St. Martin's Press, 1994.

Title: Palmerston, the early years, 1784-1841 / by Kenneth Bourne.
Publisher: New York : Macmillan, c1982.

Title: The realities behind diplomacy : background influences on British external policy, 1865-1980 / Paul Kennedy.
Publisher: London ; Boston : Allen & Unwin in association with Fontana Books, 1981.

Title: Victorian England; portrait of an age.
Edition: 2d ed.
Publisher: London, Oxford University Press [1960]

Eleven episodes into schama. Its been messy and muddled since cromwell tbh.

the programme or the country?

ladies and gentlemen, if you check under your seats you will find an envelope predicting not only that exact reply, but also the source

excellent

i had no memory of starting this thread. i actually am reading a history book, though; beevor's 'second world war'; it's piss.

reading Europe's Tragedy on the Thirty Years' War, don't think it'll feature a lot of Britishes content tbh

Calvovoressi, Wint & Pritchard's Penguin history of WWII is the one to go for IMO, really shows how the Pacific theatre was key to the ultimate outcome

re. the 30 Years War, I read the classic account by Wedgwood, who I think was a relation of Tony Benn. It really was one thing after another.

i might sell the beevor and get the penguin instead. beevor is doing me the dubious favour of assuming i already know about the balance of power in pre-wwii china, among other things. i can't really deal with it. i feel like most of what i think of as the 'history' i am going to this book to hopefully learn about is happening off to the side, somewhere, and meanwhile there's just a lot of numbers and places and names that don't make a lot of sense to me.

the Penguin book has a lot of stuff about naval build-up in the Pacific, which (having said it was important above) I think might be over-played, although the material about the Japanese occupation of Manchuria is fascinating

dunno what the penguin book is, but i enjoyed the max hastings book on ww2 if enjoyed is the right word, might check out the new one on ww1

was just asking adamrl about this. i want to read a book about more recent history. like thatcherism or something about the past 50 years.

not a boring one please

dominic sandbrook?

Calvovoressi, Wint & Pritchard's Penguin history of WWII is the one to go for

What is this? I'm getting Total War, which looks like some of the same authors but is old and looks by no means a potted history.

They do have a 'look inside' for the same authors' World Politics Since 1945, which looks terrific I must say.

Ah, got it: The Penguin History of the Second World War. Dunno why this wasn't showing first time around. It looks terrific anyway.

Winty, Calvicoressi-i, triffic lads

they're the same book!!

I've only gone and ordered both.

I can't think of any more modern history. It's too recent, I feel like we're still living it. The Kynaston series gets a lot of acclaim, but I've found them very dry on browsing.

I feel like it might be better to look elsewhere, maybe at a biography of a public figure who lived in different worlds. I can't think who though; it might be someone initially unpromising like John Major or Jim Callaghan, if there are decent books about them.

As for still living it, I was tickled to see the wiki entry for the 1996 Manchester bombing start thusly: "Following the 12th century Norman invasion of Ireland and the Tudor conquest of Ireland beginning in the 1530s..."

i really enjoy what i've read of the Kynastons but my dryness tolerance is higher than a lot of people's. they're not finished yet tho.

i didn't hate Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain when i read it, even when his implied politics rubbed me up wrong. think it might be a decent intro for non-Britishes to the post-war era, not massively academic in style with some funny anecdotes and a good sense of its (imo somewhat wrong-headed) story

having a think has just led me to an Amazon review of Paul Johnson's history of England (axe-grindingly polemical, good fun, not to be trusted) wherein some poor soul describes Johnson's language as "a bit intellectual in places" which will send me off to bed chuckling if nothing else

keep meaning to buy this thing:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Radical-History-Britain-Visionaries-Revolutionaries/dp/0349120269

anyone read it?