The Liberal Party in rural England, 1885-1910 : radicalism and community

This book explores the relationship between the British Liberal party and the rural working-class voters enfranchised by the Reform Act of 1884. It argues that the Liberal party's attempts to appeal simultaneously to both radical and communitarian traditions of rural political culture help to explain not only why the Liberals continued to launch attacks on the landed aristocracy long after one might have expected them to have switched to a more 'modern' emphasis on class politics, but also why the 'New Liberal' emphasis on community carried such broad electoral appeal at the beginning of the twentieth century.