Most people would agree that culture, thought and belief matter in modern British politics. But just why, how and to what extent they mattered has not concerned historians as much as it might have done. One of the historians who has thought seriously about this issue is Jonathan Parry. Bringing together world-leading experts, this book draws on Parry’s work to offer new insights into the interconnections between the world of ideas and the cut-and-thrust of British political life.
Paul Readman, Professor of Modern British History
24 February 2025
Book highlights impact of individuals' personalities in modern British politics
Professor Paul Readman co-edits 'Culture, Thought and Belief in British Political Life since 1800. Essays in Honour of Jonathan Parry'.
Professor Paul Readman’s new book shows how and why ideas, people and personalities have influenced modern British political life, how 'culture, thought and belief are integral to the fabric of politics, high and low, foreign and domestic'. How they are 'woven into the day-to-day business of debate, policy and decision-making'.
Co-edited with Dr Geraint Thomas at the University of Cambridge, the book is inspired by the work of Historian, Jonathan Parry, who supervised Paul’s PhD dissertation in the past. It contains essays by many of Parry’s other former students, as well as colleagues and friends. Contributors include Sir David Cannadine, Helen McCarthy, Boyd Hilton, Susan Pennybacker, and John Bew, King’s College London.
The essays in the book explore the cultural and intellectual influences on politics since the nineteenth century. Covering a range of subjects, including the country house in Victorian political culture, cricket and the politics of Englishness, the friendship between Winston Churchill and G.M. Trevelyan, the socialist networks of Beatice Webb and Margaret Cole, and the origins of the twenty-first century controversy over the statue to the imperialist explorer Henry Morton Stanley, in Denbigh, Wales.
The essays highlight significance in real-world politics rather than abstract political contexts.
Read Professor Paul Readman's blog post, Celebrating Jon Parry’s Work.
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Professor in Modern British History
Professor in History and Foreign Policy