This thesis assesses the extent of social isolation experienced by Dutch and British ‘children of the red flag', i.e. people who grew up in communist families during the Cold War. This study is a comparative research and focuses on the political and non-political aspects of the communist movement. By collating the existing body of biographical research and prosopographical literature with oral testimonies this thesis sets out to build a balanced picture of the British and Dutch communist movement. The study is divided into two parts. Part I discusses the political life of communists within the wider context of the history of British and Dutch communist organizations (i.e. both communist parties and their youth organizations) from 1901-1970. Part II discusses the private and public life of British and Dutch communists in the period 1940-1970. The latter draws upon oral testimonies and questions if non-political aspects of communist life were based on a Soviet model. The experiences of communist children are explored into detail within the context of the following topics; political and cultural upbringing, prescription and aspirations, neighbourhood, school & education, work & employment, money & poverty and friendships & relationships. The interviews are being used as a means of testing the accuracy of two authors in particular; Jolande Withuis and Raphael Samuel, who both published pioneering works on communist mentality. The originality of this project rests in its approach; it is a comparative research inspired by both oral history and memory studies. Instead of emphasizing the idea of a unified and centralized (international) communist movement, this thesis argues that cultural, social and political differences between Britain and the Netherlands fundamentally influenced the nature and form of their respective communist movement and explain the discrepancy between the Dutch and British respondents' experiences. Applying the comparative approach this study challenges the existing definitions of communist identity and as such it contributes to recent comparative studies of the communist movement as well as studies of communist mentality.

This thesis examines the place of science in interwar British culture, and challenges central narratives about the shape of interwar British science. Informed by histories of the nineteenth century that critique a process of professionalization and popularization, I argue that characteristics of nineteenth century science persisted much longer than is commonly assumed. In particular, I show that the boundaries of the scientific community were still quite fluid, that interpreting science for a broad audience was crucial for the making of science (both in the public sphere and in the scientific community, at a time of specialization), and that there were attempts to overcome a supposed divide between the sciences and the arts (in cultural productions and personal relations). These arguments are made through an examination of the life and work of J.G. Crowther (1899-1983). Crowther's life has not yet received extended treatment from historians, but this neglect belies his contemporary importance. Drawing on his extensive archive (and those of his peers) and reviews, I advance the notion of Crowther as a ‘man in the middle' – he was someone who mediated between practising scientists and the public and between practising scientists of different specializations, positioned himself at the centre of the two cultures, and often found himself in the middle ground politically. As such, he exemplifies the state of the pre-Big Science culture of interwar Britain. Conceptually, I develop the term ‘interpreter' to refer to Crowther's role: this term overcomes many of the pitfalls of ‘popularizer', and shows Crowther in an active role, shaping and re-shaping the meanings of science in the public sphere for his own political and professional ends. It is hoped that, by thinking in terms of ‘interpretation', historians will be able to develop more sophisticated understandings of the place of science in twentieth century British culture.

The present thesis is an investigation into the relations between Great Britain and the Habsburg Monarchy (Austria-Hungary) in these years and how, in the words of Lord Rosebery in 1887 'the natural ally of Great Britain' became the enemy power of 1914 that had to be destroyed. Indeed, great emphasis is placed upon the key role that Britain played in the Monarchy's destruction. (one is reminded, en passant, of the poet William Cowper's admonition of 'love to hatred turned.') The first chapter will examine the general views held of the Monarchy by British travellers and commentators in the 19th and early 20th centuries, while Chapter II will focus on the views of the two greatest commentators on the Monarchy in the English-speaking world- theSlavonic scholar, Robert Seton-Watson and The Times Vienna correspondent, Henry Wickham Steed. Chapter III will deal with a general survey of Anglo-Austrian relations from the 1880's to the crisis years of 1908-9, involving the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which the subsequent chapter (IV) will examine in detail. Chapter V will look at the following years leading up to the First Worls War with particular reference to the Balkan Wars of 1912-13. Chapter VI (parts 1 and 2) will examine the July crisis and the actual outbreak of war and the attitude of people, press and parliament vis-à-vis the Monarchy when the two countries came to blows the following month in August, while the final Chapter VII will stress the important part that Britain subsequently played in Austria-Hungary's overthrow. In particular great significance will be attached to Sir Edward Grey's failure in the years preceding the First World War to act as an 'honest broker' between the two great rival alliance systems of France and Russia and Austria-Hungary, Germany and Italy, and the willingness to accommodate Russia at Austria's expense. This led, it will be argued, to Germany effectively waging, initially, 'a preventve war' before her only real ally either disintegrated internally or was overthrown from without, hopelessly encircled as she was. (The very scenario that Grey claimed he feared the most actually happened largely through his failure to help Austria- the weakest link in the European alliance chain. The fact that the Foregn Office Memorandum of 1916 could argue 'that the Austro-Hungarian Empire must come to an end if the causes of war in the future are to be effectively removed' was, it is argued, merely putting a gloss on an anti-Austrian British Realpolitik formulated in the years before the war broke out, even if not openly acknowledged as such.

This dissertation argues that the idea of a German Menace was not simply a product of concerns about the defence of the British Isles, but rather it was born out of the mentality of British imperialism. Over the period 1896-1903, imperial antagonism between Germany and Britain, in various contexts around the globe, inspired the popular perception of the German Menace as a distinctly imperial threat. Where the established historiography locates the beginning of the Anglo-German rivalry within the development of the naval armaments race after 1904, this study traces the British fear of Germany much earlier and, crucially, much further away from the shores of the North Sea. The Dreadnought Race was a product of pre-existing anxieties; this thesis will explain the context of imperial anxiety out of which the coherent concept of the German Menace developed. It reveals how specific imperial crises informed British popular beliefs and how the stereotypes of German covetousness, autocracy and efficiency coalesced to form a powerful force in British society and politics that had reached its peak by 1903. By 1903 Germany was widely regarded as a menace to the British Empire.

The thesis examines Coleridge's criticism of Wordsworth in the Biographia Literaria in the context of the contemporary review reaction to Wordsworth's poetry and theory of poetic diction, concentrating throughout on Wordsworth's most representative and persistent critic, Francis Jeffrey. The thesis is divided into two sections, according to a distinction laid down in the opening pages of the Biographia. The first examines "the long continued controversy concerning the true nature of poetic diction", the second, "the real poetic character" of William Wordsworth. The first section, on "The Language of Poetry", opens with a discussion of the explicit and implicit aspirations of the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, relating them to the theory of mind and nature in Wordsworth's poetry, and to Wordsworth's poetic practice. Chapter Two discusses Coleridge's reading of the Preface, its misrepresentation of the Preface's basic assumptions, and the extent to which Coleridge assimilates many of the arguments of the contemporary reviewers, only to move beyond them. The second section, "The Poet, the People, and the Public", concentrates more closely on the criticism of Francis Jeffrey. Chapter Three deals, briefly, with the prejudices of Jeffrey's criticism - with the Edinburgh Review as an historical enterprise - and then, at length, with the principles of his criticism as revealed in his review of Archibald Alison's Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste and his reviews of other aesthetic, ethical, and philosophical writings. After establishing the critical ambiguity of Jeffrey's associationist aesthetic, Chapter Four moves to a comparison of Jeffrey's and Coleridge's criticism of Wordsworth, treating their similarities and differences on the subject of poetic sensibility and poetic genius. The final chapter, Chapter Five, looks at the social and political implications of Jeffrey's rejection of Wordsworth, interpreting that rejection as prophesying and enforcing the isolation of the poet from the public. Throughout, Coleridge's Biographia Literaria is seen as a coherent response to the contemporary reviewers generally, and, more specifically, to Francis Jeffrey's criticism of William Wordsworth.

The thesis argues that the development of the New Liberalism in the late nineteenth century was opposed from the standpoint of a more "traditional" conception of liberalism by a group of political theorists who owed their inspiration to the work of Herbert Spencer. Despite the protestations of these self-styled "Individualists" that they were the true heirs of mid-century liberalism, it is argued that their political theory represented as much a transformation of Benthamite Radicalism as did that of the New Liberals. The Individualists developed raid-century liberalism in a conservative direction, arguing that social change was not to be attained by conscious design and developing an ethical justification for the actual distribution of property and power in late Victorian Britain. The thesis establishes this claim by examining six Individualist arguments derived from Spencer's Synthetic Philosophy: (1) the argument from the biological theory of evolution; (2) the argument from psychological theory; (3) the sociological conception of society as an "organism"; (4) the theory of historical development; (5) the doctrine of utility; and (6) the theory of justice and property rights.

The aim of the thesis is to study the circumstances which influenced the policy of the British Government towards the decolonization of the Falklands from 1945 to 1989. A comprehensive approach to the subject enabled an examination of the inter-relationship between the various forces which defined the nature of the dilemma. The themes included economic development, the form of landownership in the Colony, Falkland politics, the strategic value of the Islands, Anglo- Argentine trade and the Antarctic dimension. The thesis presents an original interpretation of how volatile and unpredictable pressures defined the dispute. A pattern emerges which shows that Government policy consisted of responses to different situations. The structure is based on a chronological approach which concentrates on the seven major turning-points in the dispute and how they were perceived in Britain and the Falklands. It also includes three original case studies. First, there is a socio- economic study of the peculiar approach to the colonization of the Falklands in the nineteenth century which provides a background to later developments. Secondly, the 1982 Conflict shows how the problems of the last British colonial territories can be in inverse proportion to their size. Thirdly, the examination of the Falkland Lobby gives a detailed account of how a successful British pressure group is organized. The primary sources used were Foreign and Colonial Office files at the Public Records Office (Kew) for the period up to the 1950s, and the archives of the Falkland Islands Association for the period from the mid-1960s. These were supplemented by private papers, the records of the Falkland Islands Company in London, interviews with prominent people, contemporary newspapers, official documents and secondary sources.

The thesis is introduced with a brief review of why industrialization and urbanization should be examined together and how this may best be done in the Scottish context. There is then a critical examination of the available sources, archaeological and documentary (including technical treatises), and a consideration of their integrated use. It is accepted that in examining a topic as diverse as this that not all the sources and topics avilable can be fully explored. Emphasis has been given to the physical implications of manufacturing from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries. As a result documentary sources for the sixteenth century have not been dealt with in detail and the political and social history of craft incorporations have not been discussed.

This thesis examines the effects of the campaign for disestablishment upon the religious and social life of Monmouthshire in the period 1840-1880. From a position of strength in 1840, nonconformists intensified their efforts to redress their religious and social grievances and to support the programme of the Liberation Society founded in 1844. The main focus of this study is the increasing influence of the Baptists, the strongest Nonconformest denomination in Monmouthshire during this period. The importance of the Baptist College and those involved in its leadership under its principal Dr Thomas Thomas, is analysed through the Dissenters’ campaigns against compulsory Church rate and state-funded education. Thomas’s leadership was paramount, not only in the Baptist College but also through crane street chapel of which he was pastor in a joint appointment for thirty –seven years. His stature was publicly recognised when he was appointed President of the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland in 1872. He had become leader of the Baptist churches in Monmouthshire by1857 when he was chiefly responsible for setting up the Monmouthshire English Baptist Association at Pontypool. Thomas became noteworthy as a leader not only of Monmouthshire Baptists but also in the religious and social life of the county. His relationships with other religious leaders and his influence upon them are examined. This study seeks to fil a historiographical gap in our understanding of the impact of the campaign for Disestablishment in its early phases upon the religious life of Monmouthshire. It also provides a picture of the two institutions that were essential to the development of the Dissenters’ campaign for religious equality, Pontypool Baptist College and Crane Street Chapel. From the available resources, an analysis is provided.

This thesis examines how the authors of ephemeral print used the gender framework for political ends during the first Civil War. In particular it considers how both the royalist and parliamentarian pamphleteers constructed and promoted a hegemonic, patriarchal definition of manhood amongst their male supporters in order to encourage them to fight for either king or parliament. It also demonstrates how the pamphleteers of each party drew upon deep-seated cultural allusions and a pre-existing language of insult in order to claim that their enemies were ‘unmanly’ or ‘effeminate’ and therefore unable or unwilling to uphold the patriarchal social order. The thesis shows that the pamphleteers of both sides set out to demonstrate that their own men were exemplars of patriarchal manhood, while simultaneously claiming that the anti-patriarchal behaviour of their opponents had betrayed their unsuitability for a position of authority within the commonwealth. Gendered language was therefore a powerful way to legitimise the claim of one’s own side to patriarchal authority and political power while simultaneously delegitimizing the claim of one’s opponents. The introduction outlines the key questions which the thesis seeks to address and gives my reasons for undertaking this study. Chapter one examines the reluctance of past generations of historians to study the wartime tracts and highlights the importance of the new cultural history, gender studies and the linguistic turn in bringing the gendered language of the wartime tracts to academic attention. Recently, there has been a surge of interest in the print culture of the Civil Wars. In particular, the pioneering work of David Underdown has led other historians to explore how the wartime pamphleteers made use of cultural references in order to communicate political ideas. Chapter one situates my thesis within these recent developments in scholarship. Chapter two considers the main gendered themes of the parliamentarian tracts during the first Civil War. It explores how and why manhood was constructed and how gendered insult was utilised by the pamphleteers. Chapter three focuses on how three principal royalist personalities were represented in parliamentarian tracts, namely Charles I, Queen Henrietta Maria and Prince Rupert. Chapter four considers the broader gendered themes within the royalist literature of the period and tests the assertions of previous historians that royalist propaganda was frequently elitist and self-defeating. Chapter five explores the royalists’ treatment of three key parliamentarian figures: Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, Sir William Waller and Lady Ann Waller. It explores the careful treatment that Essex initially received from the royalist polemicists and contrasts this with the increasingly barbed attacks that were made against Waller, particularly by commenting upon the actions of his wife, Ann. The conclusion summarises the key arguments of the thesis and relates my findings to other broader questions regarding the operation and contestation of patriarchal power during the conflict, the practice of printing and how the use of gendered language developed in the polemical works of the later 1640s. The thesis ends with a brief discussion of some areas in which further research might enable us to better understand the vital role that gender played in reinforcing authority during the turbulent 1640s.