This volume investigates the long-term evolution of parliamentary recruitment and political career patterns across eleven European nations from 1848 to 2000. Editors Heinrich Best and Maurizio Cotta, both established scholars in electoral studies, assemble a team of experts to analyze how the democratization of political representation has shifted over the last 150 years. The work utilizes a comparative framework to identify structural changes in who enters parliament and how their professional trajectories have developed within diverse national contexts.

Experts recognize this work as a foundational comparative study for those researching European legislative history and political recruitment. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose and the extensive data sets provided, which serve as a primary resource for scholars in the field of comparative politics.