Abstract

Liberal England

The article provides information on books "The Age of Reform, 1815-1870," by E.L. Woodward; and "Gladstone and the Irish Nation," by J.L. Hammond. The nineteenth century in England was an age of progressive reforms, 1815 found the nation with both central and local administration in a state of complete chaos, with most widespread corruption and family patronage, with incredible poverty, squalor, and degradation of life. Woodward describes this age of reform in a broad and solid survey which takes into account all the different aspects of England's internal and external policy and of its social and cultural life. Hammond, who has explored the social history of the early nineteenth century in several important volumes, presents a great and moving book, in the best liberal English tradition, an account of Gladstone's Irish policy.