Liberalism Democracy And The State In Britain

The five pieces reprinted here are part of the vibrant polemical literature of liberalism in the last four decades of the nineteenth century. They illustrate a creed whose adherents were acutely aware of its recent achievements and further potential in shaping British society and politics. The dynamic, highly reflective nature of British liberalism in this period is already familiar through substantial texts such as Mill's Subjection of Women (1869) and Spencer's The Man Versus the State (1884). However, many works on a smaller scale were also important in defining the contours of liberal thought when the political fortunes of liberalism were at their height. This volume represents a sample of such writings.