This British author and historian specializes in modern history and the history of business and philanthropy. Their work delves deeply into pivotal aspects of society and culture. Focusing on analysis, their writings illuminate the complexities of the past and their impact on the present. Their distinct writing style and research depth offer readers an enriching perspective on historical subjects.
With a superb series of specially selected illustrations, & a pithy introduction to each speech by Cannadine, this collection gives an unforgettably vivid picture of Churchill the orator in action. His voice may be silenced, but his words still speak.
Cannadine's concern is to explain how generations of Britons have perceived their society and their place within it. He suggests that class may best be understood as a shorthand term for three different but abiding ways in which the British have visualised their social worlds and social identities: class as a seamless hierarchy of individual social relations; class as 'upper', 'middle' and 'lower'; and class as 'us' versus 'them'. Across the last three centuries, the resonance and appeal of these three different ways of viewing British society has ebbed and flowed. Class in Britain is a fascinating and powerful account of why this has been the case. In discussing how we see ourselves and how we see the society to which we belong, Cannadine lays particular emphasis on the role of politicians in shaping social identities in a modern democratic world.
Why did the royal family become dysfunctional? How did the House of Windsor amass so much wealth? In this entertaining and thought-provoking collection David Cannadine answers these questions and more, offering dazzling brief overviews of topics ranging from class to divorce, privacy to patriotism, the rise and fall of Empire, and the absurd cult of Victorian Values. Brilliantly dissecting the continuing crises of the British monarchy, he reveals how even the most exceptional figures-Churchill and Mosely, Thatcher and Princess Diana-can only be understood in their full historical context. Cannadine skillfully brings the past to life, using it to illuminate the present.
"A brilliant, multifaceted chronicle of economic and social change." --The New York Times At the outset of the 1870s, the British aristocracy could rightly consider themselves the most fortunate people on earth: they held the lion's share of land, wealth, and power in the world's greatest empire. By the end of the 1930s they had lost not only a generation of sons in the First World War, but also much of their prosperity, prestige, and political significance. Deftly orchestrating an enormous array of documents and letters, facts, and statistics, David Cannadine shows how this shift came about--and how it was reinforced in the aftermath of the Second World War. Astonishingly learned, lucidly written, and sparkling with wit, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy is a landmark study that dramatically changes our understanding of British social history.
The British Empire has generally been seen as a racist empire (most influentially in Edward Said's "Ornamentalism"). While not wholly denying this, Cannadine, in this funny, often horrifying book, suggests a different dynamic. The British rulers were motivated not by race but by class - they loathed Indians or Africans no more or less than they loathed the great majority of Englishmen, dreaming of an empire based on deference and feudalism. The often farcical gap between these views and reality make "Ornamentalism" both highly enjoyable and extremely provocative for anyone wishing to understand how the British Empire really worked.
David Cannadine's impassioned, controversial plea for us to recognise the importance of both equality and historyGreat works of history have so often had at their heart a wish to sift people in ways that have been profoundly damaging and provided intellectual justification for terrible political decisions. Again and again, categories have been found--religion, nation, class, gender, race, 'civilization'--that have sought to explain world events by fabricating some malevolent or helpless 'other'. The Undivided Past is an agonised attempt to understand how so much of the writing of history has been driven by a fatal desire to dramatize differences - to create an 'us versus them'. Is is above all an appeal to common humanity.
Few modern women have had as great a political impact as Margaret Hilda Roberts, the grocer's daughter from Grantham who, as Margaret Thatcher, became Britain's first woman prime minister. The longest serving British premier of the twentieth century, Mrs Thatcher has been the subject of both adulation and vilification. In Margaret Thatcher: A Life and Legacy, the leading historian Sir David Cannadine sets Margaret Thatcher in the context of recent British history. With elegance, wit, and historical insight, Cannadine charts Mrs Thatcher's upbringing and influences, her political career and life after politics, the impact of her policies, and her personal reputation and political legacy. The book also features a glossary of key terms, a chronology, a 'dramatis personae' of significant figures of the period, and a guide to further reading. Written by one of our foremost international historians, it is an essential work for anyone interested in the life and work of a towering--and often controversial--figure in modern British history, as well as students, academics, and researchers in the fields of modern history and politics.
