Politics and Society

The areas of politics and society in the British Romantic period are central to our courses, especially the impact of the dual industrial and democratic revolutions on British culture. For the era's profound social changes, see work by Hobsbawn and, more recently, by Wrigley, Johnson, Daunton, and Colley (recommended).

The influence of the French Revolution on British politics and culture in the period cannot be overstated. A good introduction to the French Revolution is by Rudé and for the debate between Burke and the reformers see Butler and Dickinson; for the conservative reaction see Godechot. The effect of the revolution on personal character and culture is studied by Hunt, whose book has been reissued with a new preface that reconsiders her work in relation to recent scholarship. The Revolution also powerfully influenced the radical press in Britain, as shown by Gilmartin, Andrews, and essays in Lüsebrink and Popkin. Many studies of British writers deal with the French Revolution: see Woodring (somewhat dated) and, more recently, Friedman and essays in Iverson.

A vibrant new interdisciplinary area within Romantic literary history has emerged that explores the development of British popular culture and radicalism. Building on the work of E.P. Thompson, scholars in the field analyze the social composition and political and rhetorical strategies of the popular movement for political reform in the period. Recommended studies are by McCalman, Mee, Linebaugh, Worrall, Barrell, and essays in collections edited by Philp, Davis, and Morton and Smith. These studies can be usefully cross-referenced with works in Art and Print Culture, especially texts by Barrell, Bindman, and Wood.

Other helpful sources include the entries in Baylen and Gossman; and see the essays on "Revolution" (Philp) and "Democracy" (Dickinson) in the Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age edited McCalman (1999), which appears under Aids to Research.
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Andrews, Stuart. The British Periodical Press and the French Revolution, 1789-1999 (2000)

Bainbridge, Simon. Napoleon and English Romanticism (1995)

Barrell, John. Imagining the King's Death: Figurative Treason, Fantasies of Regicide 1793-1796 (2000)

Baylen, Joseph O. and Norbert J. Gossman, eds. Biographical Dictionary of Modern British Radicals. Vol.1: 1770-1830 (1979)

Butler, Marilyn, ed. Burke, Paine, Godwin, and the Revolution Controversy (1984)

Chandler, James. England in 1819: The Politics of Literary Culture and the Case of Romantic Historicism (1998)

Colley, Linda. Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837 (1992)

Daunton, M.J. Progress and Poverty: An Economic and Social History of Britian, 1700-1850 (1995)

Davis, Michael T., ed. Radicalism and Revolution in Britain 1775-1848 (2000)

Davis, Michael T. and Paul A. Pickering, eds. Unrespectable Radicals: Essays in Honour of Iain McCalman (2007)

Deane, Seamus. The French Revolution and Enlightenment in England, 1789-1832 (1988)

Dickinson, H.T. British Radicalism and the French Revolution 1789-1815 (1985)

Friedman, Barton. Fabricating History: English Writers on the French Revolution (1989)

Gilmartin, Kevin. Print Politics: The Press and Radical Opposition in Early Nineteenth-Century England (1996)

Godechot, Jacques. The Counter-Revolution: Doctrine and Action 1789-1804. Trans. Salvator Attansio (1971)

Goodwin, Albert. The Friends of Liberty: The English Democratic Movement in the Age of the French Revolution (1979)

Halévy, Elie. England in 1815 (1924)

Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Revolution, 1789-1848 (1962)

Hone, J. Ann. For the Cause of Truth: Radicalism in London 1796-1821 (1982)

Hunt, Lynn. Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution (1984, 2004)

Iverson, Anders, ed. The Impact of the French Revolution on English Literature (1991)

Johnson, Paul. The Birth of the Modern: World Society 1815-1830 (1992)

Linebaugh, Peter. London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century (1991)

Lüsebrink, Hans-Jürgen and Jeremy D. Popkin, eds. Enlightenment, Revolution and the Periodical Press (2004)

McCalman, Ian. Radical Underworld: Prophets, Revolutionaries and Pornographers in London, 1795-1840 (1988)

Mee, Jon. Romanticism, Enthusiasm, and Regulation: Politics and the Policing of Culture in the Romantic Period (2003)

Mee, Jon. Dangerous Enthusiasm: William Blake and the Culture of Radicalism in the 1790s (1992)

Morton, Timothy and Nigel Smith, eds. Radicalism in British Literary Culture, 1650-1830 (2002)

Palmer, R.R. The Age of the Democratic Revolutions: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760-1800 (1959)

Philp, Mark, ed. The French Revolution and British Popular Politics (1991)

Philp, Mark, ed. Resisting Napoleon: The British Response to the Threat of Invasion, 1797-1815 (2006)

Rudé, George. The French Revolution (1988)

Smith, Olivia. The Politics of Language 1791-1819 (1984)

Thompson, E.P. The Making of the English Working Class (1963)

Trevor-Roper, H. R. Romantic Movement and the Study of History (1969)

Webb, R.K. The British Working Class Reader 1790-1848 (1955)

Woodring, Carl. Politics in English Romantic Poetry (1970)

Worrall, David. Radical Culture: Discourse, Resistance and Surveillance, 1790-1820 (1992)

Wrigley, E.A. Continuity, Chance and Change: The Character of the Industrial Revolution in England (1988)
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