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Strange Death of Liberal England

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A broad middle-class consensus-based on free trade, free markets and personal liberty-ruled late Victorian England. The consensus collapsed in the first decade of the Twentieth Century. The House of Lords, with far greater powers than it has today, was reactionary and obstructionist. The Irish, the feminists and the labor unions demanded redress for grievances long neglected. The ruling Liberal Party was never able to broker meaningful compromises and the extremists on the left and the right grew more and more powerful. Faced with arson campaigns and general strikes at home and civil war in Ireland, the government seemed about to fall apart when World War I broke out. The Nineteenth Century was gone for good.

It's a complicated history but Dangerfield tells it well. His writing is clear and often humorous, and he has a good sense of story. He never weighs you down with detail, but you never feel you've missed anything important. Some 65 years after it was written, this is as readable as ever. If you have any interest in modern English history, you must read this book.

This book is the classic account of Edwardian Britain and is on the suggested reading list of the Institute for Edwardian Studies...It was written by a contemporary journalist and is a great read. However, it focuses a great deal on the political side and lacks objectivity. An excellent counter-weight to Dangerfield is David Powell, The Edwardian Crisis. This is a first-rate academic revision to what Dangerfield and past scholars have written about the Edwardian period, but it is not really for those new to the subject.

This book is a fascinating nugget of editorial history. A tale of the many (many!) mistakes the British government made in the years leading up to the First World War, George Dangerfield apparently found himself unable to conceal his outrage when reflecting on the sheer idiocy of every political party, the bulk of the members of Parliment, the Prime Minister(s) government(s) as well as the general public at large.

This was a time of rapid change, when the great monarchies were finally dying and the pettiness and complexities of practising Democracy were beginning to polarize the masses with exetremism, fanaticism, and hysterical, ideology-based warnings from every side of the social, political and divine spectrum. The world was transformed into a speeding wheel of surging menace. It was little wonder to many that such a terrible war broke out (WWI, in this instance), only to be followed by the same mistakes being repeated over and over and over again (in the different light of new perspectives) throughout the coming generations.

Dangerfield can finally only laugh at the genuine human comedy of such folly while shuddering in the consequence of a world bickering senselessly over unresolvable issues.

A tremendous, timeless masterpiece.

Whoever you are and whatever you do you can find soemthing to take away from this book. Essential for an understanding of politics in a democracy, and better because it gives readers an example to learn from, rather than just theory. Also a great study in human relationships and the tragi-comedic nature of life. Probably one of the best and wittiest books on history/politics ever written.

Barbara Tuckman wrote a classic account of the European pre-World War I period, entitled The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914). George Dangerfield's account examines a smaller portion of that period, limited to one country, England. It was written in the `30's, and was a classic assignment of "AP history" classes in the `60's. Both books help dispel the understandably, after WW I, nostalgic myth, that the pre-war period was some sort of Golden Era. It wasn't, but obviously looked fairly enticing to someone being gassed in the trenches.

There are three principal historical forces that Dangerfield highlights: the Suffragette movement; the Tory Rebellion in Ulster (ah, the "Irish troubles"); and the Labo(u)r movement. The book commences with the death of Edward VII, and the ascension of George V to the throne, in 1910. It is now just over a hundred years ago, and the political "movers and shakers" of the times, with names like Baldwin, Asquith, Lloyd George, et al., are unfamiliar to many Americans. But before "liberal" became the "l-word," Dangerfield's description of a liberal resonate today: "He believed in freedom, free trade, progress and the Seventh Commandment. He also believed in reform. He was strongly in favor of peace--that is to say, he likes his wars to be fought at a distance and, if possible, in the name of God."

Concerning the "Irish troubles," which would reach culmination in the Easter uprising in Dublin, in 1916, Prime Minister Asquith had promised the Irish "Home Rule" in exchange for their parliamentary support on certain measures. This precipitated the rebellion in Ulster. Dangerfield examines the underlying forces, but does focus on the actions of the main political players. Frankly, at some point, my eyes begin to glaze over in reading the machinations involved in the Irish "wars of religion." Not so, the "women's rebellion." Certainly Dangerfield's prose and perspective helps. Consider: "When a husband is a woman's career, the woman without a husband is as good as dead. She must color her drab existence with good works, gossip, hypochondria, and religion, until, at last--unused and unwept--she dies. Such are the results of living in a world of men." DeBeauvoir could not have said it better in The Second Sex. In another section, Dangerfield debunks the idea of economic determinism, saying that it does not account for the motivation of the human soul.

Dangerfield devotes almost a 100 pages to the pre-WWI labor strife. There was a "Grand Alliance" of workers from the miners, transport workers and the railroad workers who could effectively shut the country down through collective action. The first Minimum Wage Law was passed in this manner. Many of the strands of the continual conflict, and jockeying for position between "Capital" and "Labor" were played out, with some unique distorting factors: mainly the tremendous amount of gold coming from South Africa, which dwarfed total existing stocks in Europe, the Americas, and the Colonies.

Dangerfield is wonderfully erudite, rendering much of the entire pre-war cultural life. His judgments can be quite acerbic; consider his description of the origins of the members of the august House of Lords: "That most peerages sprung from the curious powers of survival in some obscure medieval family, or from a dishonest bargain struck in the eighteenth century, or from a talent for guessing right on the stock exchange, or from a genius for keeping business projects on the windy side of the law..." Or, in summing up the outlook of a republican sheet, "The Liberator": "...which posterity is likely to cherish except its quaint belief that monarchs and not millionaires were the symbols of twentieth century tyranny..."

The author summarizes the state of the three major political movements at the beginning of 1914. There direction, and quarrels would suddenly be overwhelmed by events in far off Sarajevo. Towards the very end, he repeats the famous quote of Sir Edward Grey, made at dusk, on August 4: "The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime." Dangerfield ends his narrative, as he commences it, with the quintessential WWI war poet, Rupert Brooke, whom the author had not heard of, at the age of 12, in 1918. It was Brooke who would not live to see the lamps lit again, dying not in combat, but of mosquito-borne illness, in 1915, before the assault on the beach at Gallipoli.

Dangerfield won the Pulitzer Prize in History, in 1953, much deservedly, for this work. Gas street lights are no longer lit, and there have been some other changes as well, but many of themes continue to play themselves out, over and over again. A solid 5-star read.

Attn: With the outrageous price currently being asked by the recent publisher, no doubt to "stiff" the students required to read this book, one is much better off buying a copy of the original publication in the secondary market.

Whoever you are and whatever you do you can find soemthing to take away from this book. Essential for an understanding of politics in a democracy, and better because it gives readers an example to learn from, rather than just theory. Also a great study in human relationships and the tragi-comedic nature of life. Probably one of the best and wittiest books on history/politics ever written.

George Dangerfield's "The Strange Death of Liberal England" (2008 364-page paperback) continues as a classic study for pre-World War 1 England. First published in 1935, this text presents the history that lead Britain to the brink of political and societal collapse. By the book's conclusion Dangerfield adeptly proves that the Great War saved everyone in England, except the Liberal political party, from complete breakdown.

This book proffers a dramatic, well-informed, and interesting story (sources are noted in the text, not with footnotes or endnotes). Principally covering 1910-1914 the author informs about the prime movers and main events that pushed England's liberal government over the edge. This adept history also reviews the origins of the English trade unions, women's suffrage, and the Irish liberation movement.

All the main characters of this historical period are thoroughly reviewed: Asquith, Churchill, George V, Lloyd George, Askwith, Bonar Law, Redmond, Griffith, Carson, Smith, and the Pankhursts (Emilline, Christabel, and Sylvia). Curiously, Dangerfield offers a brief section (pages 343-354) for his favorite (?) period poet Rupert Brooke. (Is this Dangerfield's attempt to insert the obscure Brooke into history?)

Dangerfield's history showcases the end of English Imperialism before the Great War. From 1910-1913 England's Liberal Party began to withdraw from various colonial processions, forced the House of Lord's to give up its long-held veto power, began a mandatory nationalize workers' health program, ordered an unresponsive military against striking unions, mishandled the militant and destructive suffrage movement, and agreed to Irish home rule (against the wishes of northern Ireland's loyal English citizens bringing them to the edge of civil war). The story is exciting!

The book also speaks to growing German and French disrespect for the British. (Did Germany see the time ripe for war as England was on the brink of the "Great Strike" in the summer of 1914? Were the French worried about English weakness in the face of German military build-up?)

Of particular interest is Dangerfield's contemporary look at Winston Churchill. Considering him in 1935, the book offers a penetrating glimpse for the future World War 2 Prime Minister. The well-connected Churchill is open-eyed, completely informed, direct, and tough. Often impulsive, and compulsive, Winston is at the apex of history attending events that will forever change humanity. This Churchill biography, alone, makes this book worth its price.

Finally, Dangerfield writes as an observer-of 20 year old history (to him)-without taking a side. He speaks as an eyewitness from the most destructive times before the World War era. This book is recommended to everyone interested in early 20th century Britain, pre-Great War history, and the histories of English trade unions, women's suffrage, and Irish home rule.

Happy 308th Birthday of John Wesley!
The Strange Death of Liberal England

I finished reading this book on Dec. 25, 1977, and my post reading note said: "The book, in inimitable Dangerfield style covers the period from 1800 to 1906 sketchily and the period from 1906 to December 1921 carefully. Dec. 6, 1921, is the date the Irish delegates signed the Treaty--the Irish Civil War came in July 1922 and is beyond the scope of this book. This was an excellent treatment, very fair to the Irish and all in all just an excellent treatment: really the best I've read."

While the book makes highly entertaining reading, it is dangerous in its glibness. Dangerfields account is often referred to as a fundamental source for the womens suffrage movement in Britain, but his manipulation and outright suppression of facts willfully twists the contributions of the Pankhursts, radical feminists whose thinking was far in advance of its time. One often has difficulty identifying which he hated most: the incompetence of the Liberal Party or the women fighting for political recognition.