Liberalism - (Short Histories) by Jonathan Parry

About the Book

A short history of liberalism since the 1820s, one rooted in practical politics rather than abstract theorising. Liberalism is shown to be best understood as a political tradition that has been profoundly shaped by Britain's unique and evolving political culture and by political realities.

Book Synopsis

Jonathan Parry presents a history of Liberalism that is organized around themes in British Liberal politics since the early nineteenth century. In the first half of the book, he shows how the Liberal Party shaped national politics between 1830 and 1914 by conducting a series of campaigns against what it saw as over-dominant interest groups in British and Irish political, economic and religious life. Some of these campaigns succeeded, some failed, but they gave the party a strong identity as a political movement hostile to concentrations of power. The last two chapters chart its response to its political marginalization by Labour and Conservatives since the 1920s. They show how Liberals have continued to organize against over-centralized institutional power. They have defended civil liberties, urged devolution, criticized the rigidity of the electoral system, and attacked exaggerations of Britain's capacity to act independently in the world. British Liberalism's focus has never been the defence of laissez-faire economic principles, as many claim; it has always been political.

Review Quotes

Building on decades of research, Jonathan Parry delivers a compact and thought-provoking history of British Liberalism since the 1830s. Defining it as a practical political movement for liberty (more than an economic or primarily theoretical one), Parry offers a nuanced account of how British Liberals have fended for what they saw as the best balance for citizens' welfare across the local, national and international power arenas. In exposing Liberalism's challenges, shortcomings, but also successes, Parry emphasizes the party's profound capacity for resilience and reinvention till today.--Stéphanie Prévost, Senior Lecturer, Université Paris Cité

Jonathan Parry is uniquely qualified to write the history of Liberalism in Britain. Building on four decades of research and writing, in this tour de force, he delivers a pithy, original, and trenchant analysis of Liberal ideas and principles in political action over the past two hundred years.--Anthony Howe, Emeritus Professor of Modern History, University of East Anglia

Jonathan Parry's history of British Liberalism does something very few writers about Liberalism do. It takes seriously what British Liberals themselves think their politics is about: combatting excessive concentrations of power that corrupt government and oppress individuals. It is clear-eyed about Liberals' failures as well as their successes over the past two centuries and never hesitates to challenge clichés and misconceptions espoused by Liberalism's enemies and by some of its friends.--David Howarth, Professor of Law and Public Policy, University of Cambridge, and former Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge (2005-10)

About the Author

Jonathan Parry is Professor Emeritus of Modern British History at the University of Cambridge. He is a Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge. He has published three books and many articles on British Liberalism in the nineteenth century, as well as a number of essays about Benjamin Disraeli.