One of the foremost scholars of nineteenth–century England, Gash has written a new interpretation of the years 1815 to 1865 that takes industrialization off center stage as the great dramatic event in national life. Gash integrates other equally significant changes the postwar slump in trade and manufacturing, the unprecedented expansion of population, and the increasing urbanization. He argues that the singular ability of the industrial revolution to produce wealth and skills enabled England to cope with impending social catastrophe. Gash also reintroduces the importance of politics in explaining events, and he challenges the recent historical interpretations giving primacy to class history and class consciousness.

As befits the greatest living authority on early nineteenth-century politics, [Professor Gash’s] book is lucid on the era of Liverpool, Peel and Palmerston, with many shrewd asides on the constitution, social structure, religious institutions and the governmental machine.
-- Times Literary Supplement