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Iain Sharpe

Book review: Peace, Reform and Liberation – “the first port of call for anyone wishing to learn more about Liberal and Liberal Democrat history”

By Iain Sharpe | Wed 16th November 2011 - 10:25 am

There has long been a need for a single volume history of the Liberal and Liberal Democrat parties covering the entire period from its roots in the constitutional struggles of the seventeenth century to the present day.

While Liberal history has received plenty of attention from historians, previous studies of the party have been limited to a specific eras or themes. In many ways of course the party has several histories. This includes the origins of the Liberal tradition in the Whigs of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the heyday of Liberal government in the middle of the nineteenth century, the party’s decline and near extinction between the 1920s and 1950s, its recovery in the second half of the twentieth century, and now the challenges of governing in coalition with the party’s historic enemies, the Conservatives.

So it is welcome that the Liberal Democrat History Group has sought to fill a gap with Peace, Reform and Liberation.

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Recent Comments

  • Matt (Bristol)
    Oops, Richard Cripps not Roger Billins....
  • Matt (Bristol)
    Oh, and Roger Billins, I no longer see the party as a party of consensus, certainly not democratically derived negotiated consensus. Maybe the party of a consen...
  • Matt (Bristol)
    I don't think the Lib Dem problem is a lack of zippy slogans. I think, if anything, its a prioritisation of zippy slogans. Neither Badenoch or Burnham seem to h...
  • Graham Jeffs
    The point made by Roger Billins is extremely worrying. I, too, am part of this brigade. The reality is that the party leaders don't seem to have any concern ...
  • Big Tall Tim
    Mick Taylor has it spot on....