1688-1830
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Gladstone 1809-1874
Review of H.C.G. Matthew, Gladstone 1809-1874 (Oxford University Press, 1988).
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Vacillating statesman
Review of Arthur Aspinall, Lord Brougham and the Whig Party (Originally published 1927; reprinted Nonsuch, 2005).
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Charles James Fox, the Repeal of Poynings Law, and the Act of Union
1782 – 1801: the critical period in Irish and British history during which many of the seeds of the present troubles were sown.
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Philosopher of freedom
Wilhelm von Humboldt and early German Liberalism.
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Fox to a friend on the French Revolution
Letter from Charles James Fox to his friend, Mr Fitzpatrick, on the French Revolution.
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Adam Smith, 1723-1790
Adam Smith did for economic liberalism what John Locke had done for political liberalism, namely, to lay the philosophical foundations on which others would build a distinctive liberal tradition. Smith’s ideas, however, have permeated the western political tradition to the extent where not only liberals but also other contemporary schools of thought claim to be…
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Joseph Hume, 1777-1855
Joseph Hume was a Scottish radical who devoted his political career to championing the principles of retrenchment. He was born near Montrose, Forfarshire in January 1777, the first son of James Hume. Hume’s father, master of a small fishing ship, died when he was nine and the family was forced to fall back on the…
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Jeremy Bentham, 1745-1832
[…]Bentham’s enduring legacy is a complex one. On the one hand, he is associated with utilitarian projects for social reform which suggested an activist conception of the state and which attracted charges of collectivism. On the other, his constitutional theory, with its suspicion of big government and its democratic commitment to accountability and openness, suggests…
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Defender of Liberties: Charles James Fox
2006 saw the bicentary of the death of the Whig leader Charles James Fox. A proponent of the supremacy of Parliament, the freedom of the press and the rights and civil liberties of the people, and a believer in reform, rationalism and progress, rather than repression, the ideas he defended particularly over the challenge of…