Author Description

Democracy And Political Culture: Studies In Modern British History Attempts To Give A Total Picture Of The Political-social Culture Of Great Britain In The Twentieth Century. To Do So It Chooses A Number Of Particular Subjects Which Nonetheless Stand For This Culture As A Whole, And Which Together Allow Us To Reach A Number General Conclusions About Modern British History. In This Sense It Is A Successor To Mckibbin's Previous Collection Of Essays, The Ideologies Of Class (1991), While It Also Takes Up A Number Of The Themes Of His Classes And Cultures (1998). Above All, It Is A Study Of British Democracy And Asks The Questions: What Does It Mean To Describe Britain As A Democratic Society And How Might We Measure It Against Other Comparable Societies? To Do So, Mckibbin Has Chosen Not Only More 'global' Subjects - Britain's Social Structure And The Sources Of Political Authority; The Social And Political Effects Of The First World War; Britain's Electoral And Party System; Its Literary Culture; Its Sporting Culture, And The Relation Of That Culture To The Rest Of The World, As Well As To Britain Itself; And A Comparison Of Britain's Political Culture With One Of The Closest Comparable Societies, Australia, And What That Tells Us About Britain - But Also Individual Studies Of Three Men, Very Prominent In British Life, Who, In Different Ways, Both Contributed To Britain's Political Culture And Were Also Students Of It: J.m. Keynes, An Economist, Harold Nicolson, A Politician And Writer, And A.j. Cronin, A Novelist. All Three Represented British Political Culture In Its Broadest Spectrum.