This book, first published in 1913, records the ten years’ history of the Tariff Reform movement. Using the published declarations of both sides of the argument – the Tariff Reformers on one side, Free Traders on the other – the author provides the definitive account of Tariff reform up to the crisis of 1913.

This new study considers the impact of the empire upon modern British political culture. The economic and cultural legacy of empire have received a great deal of attention, but historians have neglected the effects of empire upon the domestic British political scene. Dr Thompson explores economic, demographic, intellectual and military influences and he shows how parliamentary and party opinion interacted with imperial ideas and interests in the country at large. This is a major new book which explores the ideology of key imperial campaigns, and their popular support. It makes a critical contribution to recent debates -- about the importance of empire to the nature and development of British national identities before and after the First World War.

This text explores how various pressure groups, such as the British Navy League, Tariff Reform League and the Anti-Socialism Union, forced the Conservative Party to adapt during the Edwardian period.

The British electorate swelled dramatically with the passing of the Second Reform Act in 1867. This presented the political class with a significant challenge. Here was a large, new electorate which needed to be understood, managed, enthused, and persuaded to vote for the right candidate in local and parliamentary elections. From this time onwards education and democratic involvement of these new voters became vital for political success. In Birmingham, the town of a thousand trades, Joseph Chamberlain and his allies were faced with an electorate which had tripled in size overnight and many of whom had never previously voted or participated in politics. In response, Joseph Chamberlain and his close-knit Birmingham team developed national campaigns on issues such as universal education, democracy and tariff reform which required new methods for propagating and winning arguments that resonated across all classes and interests. At the same time they colonised Birmingham's town council, school board and other municipal bodies where they gained the practical political experience which they could transfer to the national stage. For the first time The Birmingham Political Machine lays bare how Joseph Chamberlain with his colleagues and friends was so successful that never before or since has one politician monopolised regional power as Joseph Chamberlain did for more than thirty years in the West Midlands. He made it his invincible fortress. From now on British politics would never be the same and the techniques developed by the Birmingham Machine can still be seen today.

Brexit is likely to lead to the largest shift in Britain's economic orientation in living memory. Some have argued that leaving the EU will enable Britain to revive markets in Commonwealth countries with which it has long-standing historical ties. Their opponents maintain that such claims are based on forms of imperial nostalgia which ignore the often uncomfortable historical trade relations between Britain and these countries, as well as the UK's historical role as a global, rather than chiefly imperial, economy. Forging a British World of Trade explores how efforts to promote a 'British World' system, centred on promoting trade between Britain and the Dominions, grew and declined in influence between the 1880s and 1970s. At the beginning of the twentieth century many people from London, to Sydney, Auckland, and Toronto considered themselves to belong to culturally British nations. British politicians and business leaders invested significant resources in promoting trade with Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa out of a perception that these were great markets of the future. However, ideas about promoting trade between 'British' peoples were racially exclusive. From the 1920s onwards, colonized and decolonizing populations questioned and challenged the basis of British World networks, making use of alternative forms of international collaboration promoted firstly by the League of Nations, and then by the United Nations. Schemes for imperial collaboration amongst ethnically 'British' peoples were hollowed out by the actions of a variety of political and business leaders across Asia and Africa who reshaped the functions and identity of the Commonwealth.