Victorian Political Culture

   A video recording of this seminar is available here.

Abstract

This seminar will consider aspects of the arguments presented in Victorian Political Culture: ‘Habits of Heart and Mind’, its methodology, and what implications they have for viewing British distinctiveness and experience of modernity. Though often hailed as the first modern liberal state, embracing industrialisation, urbanisation and democracy, Britain moved through the 20th century with a hereditary monarchy, a hereditary House of Lords and an Established Anglican Church. What does this reveal about Britain’s public values and political culture?

Speaker

Professor Angus Hawkins

Professor Hawkins is a Fellow of Keble College, Professor of Modern British History in the Oxford History Faculty, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and Director of Public and International Programmes in Continuing Education. His numerous publications have focused on 19th and early 20th century British politics and constitutional ideas. In 2007-8 his two-volume biography of the 14th Earl of Derby, entitled The Forgotten Prime Minister, was published by Oxford University Press. In 2015 OUP published Victorian Political Culture: ‘Habits of Heart and Mind’, which has been brought out in Chinese by the University of Beijing Press. Others of his writings have published in Russian and Italian.