Britain's Power Elites

Britain's Power Elites PDF

Author: Hywel Williams

Publisher: Constable & Robinson

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13:

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SINCE 1979 this country has undergone a revolution. It was a very British affair - certainly no tanks on the streets and precious little violent agitation. But under first Thatcher then Blair, the post-war consensus has given way to a brand-new political order. The language of global competition, of historical inevitability and of national destiny has provided cover for a power grab more complete and ruthless than any since the English Civil War. The discretion with which this has been accomplished has left commentators baffled. Yet one thing is clear. Ironically, set against the fantasies of the heritage industry, Victorian, even Georgian, inequalities of wealth and status are back, though the methods used to justify them have changed. Hywel Williams offers an exhilarating new analysis. The order that once governed Britain is dead, and he reveals the perpetrator. Alone among imperial cadres, the capital's money men survive. They have grasped the new opportunities offered to capital, and seen off or subverted all possible threats to their freedom. The City has killed its rivals, and everyone up until now has been too polite to mention it. It is time to be clear about exactly who does run this place.

The Establishment

The Establishment PDF

Author: Owen Jones

Publisher: Melville House

Published: 2015-04-21

Total Pages: 386

ISBN-13: 1612194885

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A major bestseller in the UK and a six-time Best Book of 2014, The Establishment is a sweeping look at how power and money have made British politics hugely undemocratic. Power, money, and undemocratic politics—wait, does that sound familiar? Who wields power in politics? It is a question that's asked all too often—and never really answered. But that's exactly what Owen Jones has done in The Establishment, which has already taken Great Britain by storm. To expose the shadowy and unaccountable network of people who dominate British political life—the people who influence major decisions and reap huge profits in the process—Owen Jones sets out on a journey into the very heart of the elite. From the lobbies of the Houses of Parliament to Rupert Murdoch's newsrooms to the conference rooms of some of the world's biggest banks, Jones systematically explores the revolving doors that link the worlds of politics, media, and finance—and shows how this corrupt and incestuous world came to be. Funny, sharp, and rich with brilliant descriptions of the men and women at the heart of the elite, The Establishment is a joy to read, but its diagnosis is deadly serious: the establishment is the biggest threat to democracy today. And it's time, writes Jones, for it to be challenged.

Born to Rule

Born to Rule PDF

Author: Ellis Archer Wasson

Publisher: Sutton Publishing

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13:

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"This book is a study of the governing class in Great Britain and Ireland based on a complete survey of all families who participated regularly in parliament." "Using the records of the History of Parliament and the results of his own independent research, Ellis Wasson has reconstructed the shape and structure of Britain's small and remarkably stable ruling elite from medieval times to 1945. No other European governing class was so rich or able to survive into the modern era with much of that wealth and privilege intact. Wasson shows how its unique two-tiered structure of a handful of ancient families on top and a much larger second echelon broadly open to 'new men' from business helped Britain become the first modern society and prolonged the elite's supremacy."--BOOK JACKET.

The Politics of Wine in Britain

The Politics of Wine in Britain PDF

Author: C. Ludington

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-01-12

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 0230306225

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A unique look at the meaning of the taste for wine in Britain, from the establishment of a Commonwealth in 1649 to the Commercial Treaty between Britain and France in 1860 - this book provides an extraordinary window into the politics and culture of England and Scotland just as they were becoming the powerful British state.

Gentlemen Revolutionaries

Gentlemen Revolutionaries PDF

Author: Tom Cutterham

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2020-10-13

Total Pages: 206

ISBN-13: 0691210101

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In the years between the Revolutionary War and the drafting of the Constitution, American gentlemen—the merchants, lawyers, planters, and landowners who comprised the independent republic's elite—worked hard to maintain their positions of power. Gentlemen Revolutionaries shows how their struggles over status, hierarchy, property, and control shaped the ideologies and institutions of the fledgling nation. Tom Cutterham examines how, facing pressure from populist movements as well as the threat of foreign empires, these gentlemen argued among themselves to find new ways of justifying economic and political inequality in a republican society. At the heart of their ideology was a regime of property and contract rights derived from the norms of international commerce and eighteenth-century jurisprudence. But these gentlemen were not concerned with property alone. They also sought personal prestige and cultural preeminence. Cutterham describes how, painting the egalitarian freedom of the republic's "lower sort" as dangerous licentiousness, they constructed a vision of proper social order around their own fantasies of power and justice. In pamphlets, speeches, letters, and poetry, they argued that the survival of the republican experiment in the United States depended on the leadership of worthy gentlemen and the obedience of everyone else. Lively and elegantly written, Gentlemen Revolutionaries demonstrates how these elites, far from giving up their attachment to gentility and privilege, recast the new republic in their own image.

The Liberal Ascendancy, 1830–1886

The Liberal Ascendancy, 1830–1886 PDF

Author: T. Jenkins

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 1994-07-19

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 1349234834

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The diverse coalition of forces that came to be known as the Liberal party dominated British politics in the period between 1830 and 1886. This book seeks to account for the remarkable success of the Liberals by analysing who they were, both in parliament and in the constituencies, and showing how they managed to inter-relate. But at the same time it is emphasised that the dominance of the Liberals was seldom a simple matter, let alone a foregone conclusion. The complex story of the Liberal ascendancy requires the interweaving of high political strategy, the practical business of government, the electoral position of the party, and the development of Liberal ideology. It also involves assessing the personalities of outstanding individuals such as Earl Grey, Lord John Russell, Lord Palmerston, and W.E. Gladstone.

Reckless opportunists

Reckless opportunists PDF

Author: Aeron Davis

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2018-03-13

Total Pages: 138

ISBN-13: 1526127296

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Aeron Davis takes a close look at the state of elites today. He argues that the Brexit vote and 2017 election outcome are signs of a deeper leadership crisis that has been developing over decades. The great transformations of the 1980s onwards have not only upended societies, they have reshaped elite rule itself. Too many leaders today, regardless of intent, are ignorant, precarious, rootless and self-serving. Although richer, they have lost coherence, influence and control. Increasingly, they are just reckless opportunists, getting what they can amid the chaos they have created. Their failings are not only damaging wider society, they are undermining the very foundations of the Establishment itself. The book, based on interviews with over 350 elite figures, asks: how did we end up producing the leaders that got us here and what can we do about it?

The Emergence of British Power in India, 1600-1784

The Emergence of British Power in India, 1600-1784 PDF

Author: G. J. Bryant

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 374

ISBN-13: 1843838540

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Empires have usually been founded by charismatic, egoistic warriors or power-hungry states and peoples, sometimes spurred on by a sense of religious mission. So how was it that the nineteenth-century British Indian Raj was so different? Arising, initially, from the militant policies and actions of a bunch of London merchants chartered as the English East India Company by Queen Elizabeth in 1600, for one hundred and fifty years they had generally pursued a peaceful and thereby profitable trade in the India, recognized by local Indian princes as mutually beneficial. Yet from the 1740s, Company men began to leave the counting house for the parade ground, fighting against the French and the Indian princes over the next forty years until they stood upon the threshold of succeeding the declining Mughul Empire as the next hegamon of India. This book roots its explanation of this phenomenon in the evidence of the words and thoughts of the major, and not-so major, players, as revealed in the rich archives of the early Raj. Public dispatches from the Company's servants in India to their masters in London contain elaborate justifications and records of debates in its councils for the policies (grand strategies) adopted to deal with the challenges created by the unstable political developments of the time. Thousands of surviving private letters between Britons in India and the homeland reveal powerful underlying currents of ambition, cupidity and jealousy and how they impacted on political manoeuvring and the development of policy at both ends. This book shows why the Company became involved in the military and political penetration of India and provides a political and military narrative of the Company's involvement in the wars with France and with several Indian powers. G. J. Bryant, who has a Ph.D. from King's College London, has written extensively on the British military experience in eighteenth-century India.

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