Modern Britain, 1750 to the Present

James Vernon is Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Politics and the People (1993), Hunger: A Modern History (2007) and Distant Strangers: How Britain Became Modern (2014), and the editor of Rereading the Constitution (1996), The Peculiarities of Liberal Modernity in Imperial Britain (2011) and the Berkeley Series in British Studies. He is also on the editorial boards of Social History, Twentieth Century British History, and the Journal of British Studies.

• Part I. 1750–1819: The Ends of the Ancien Regime: 1. The imperial state; 2. An enlightened civil society and its others; 3. An imperial economy and the population question; Part II. 1819–85: Becoming Liberal and Global: 4. Reform and revolutions in government; 5. An empire of free trade?; 6. Practicing democracy; Part III. 1885–1931: The Crises of Liberalism: 7. The British imperium; 8. The social problem; 9. The rise of the mass; Part IV. 1931–76: Society Triumphant: 10. Late imperialism and social democracy; 11. Social democracy and the Cold War; 12. The ends of social democracy; Part V. 1976-: A New Liberalism?: 13. The neoliberal revolution and the making of homo economicus.

'Driven by an emphasis on the profound effects of free trade liberalism, James Vernon's Modern Britain covers vast ground. In lively and accessible prose he charts a coherent narrative of modern Britain attentive to the effects of the world beyond its shores. Vernon does not flinch from portraying the violence underpinning liberalism, and his insistence on writing Britain's history in a global frame is a welcome addition to the field.' Philippa Levine, University of Texas, Austin