Liberalism and liberal politics in Edwardian England /

Bernstein (Tulane University) has produced a valuable and well-written contribution to the continuing historical debate on the causes and chronology of the British Liberal party's decline. He argues convincingly that the success of the party before WW I ``was possible because the new class politics had not yet fully taken hold.'' By 1914, however, Bernstein describes the Liberal party as already menaced with decline and ``faced with serious problems ... which threatened its survival as the predominant party of the left.'' In Bernstein's view, the underlying weakness of the party in 1914 and the major reason for its vulnerability, even had there been no war, was its lack of sufficient attractiveness to the working-class portion of the electorate in a political world moving significantly toward class politics. In this period of transition, neither the ideology of liberalism, nor the Liberal government's social reforms, nor the increasingly tenuous alliance with Labour placed this predominately middle-class party in a position to represent working-class interests. The Liberal party was therefore unable to contain the challenge of Labour for the allegiance of the working-class voter. Bernstein's study also adds to knowledge of the relations between Liberal party leaders and the rank and file, and of the content of the liberal ideology in the Edwardian period. Tables; extensive notes; selected bibliography; and adequate index. A significant addition to libraries serving upper-division undergraduates and above.-R.S. Fraser, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire