Customer Reviews

England 1870-1914 (Oxford History of England)

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First published in 1936, the author, whose age at the time of writing I don't know, may have benefited from personal or family knowledge of many of the events and personalities he describes. Perhaps for this reason the personalities of the major players are drawn vividly: characters like Balfour, Asquith, Joe Chamberlain who played a major part in the convoluted politics of the nineties and Edwardian era.

It seems to me this was a period of incredibly complex change: the end of the mid-Victorian sobriety, the end of Britain as an agricultural nation, the end of the hegemony of devout Christianity, the frenzied pace of reform and the development of infrastructure, and the increasingly claustrophobic atmosphere of European politics as the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of German nationalism threatened the status quo.

Ensor is very fair to everyone, perhaps with a slight liberal bias, but strong Tory characters like Disraeli come out well, though he's not a massive fan of Salisbury, whose diplomatic skills are perhaps underrated.

Ensor's greatest strength though is his absolute mastery of the detail of parliamentary activity and legislative change, where his approach is encyclopaedic.

I agree with the other reviewer (on Amazon.co.uk), Ensor is a pleasure to read, his attention to his material is unfailing.