My research interests are focused in two areas. The first is British liberalism in the 19th and 20thcenturies. I am particularly interested in how people who viewed themselves as liberals and members of the Liberal party articulated their liberalism, and how that ideological outlook helped to define liberalism as a political movement. My early work was on Edwardian liberalism and the question of the decline of the Liberal party. I am now working on early Victorian liberalism, the articulation of liberal ideology with respect to foreign, defense, and colonial policies, and the origins of the Liberal party. My second interest is Britain since 1945, and especially the politics and economics of decline.

Books:

Liberalism and Liberal Politics in Edwardian England. London and Boston: Allen & Unwin. 1986.

The Myth of Decline: The Rise of Britain Since 1945. London: Pimlico. 2004.

Articles:

"British Liberal Politics and Irish Liberalism after O'Connell," in Stewart J. Brown and David W. Miller, editors, Piety and Power in Ireland, 1760-1960: Essays in Honour of Emmet Larkin (Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies; South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press, 2000), pp. 52- 78, forthcoming.

"Special Relationship and Appeasement: Liberal Policy towards America in the Age of Palmerston," The Historical Journal, XLI, 3 (Sept. 1998), pp. 725-50.

"Liberals, the Irish Famine and the Role of the State," Irish Historical Studies, XXIX, 16 (November 1995), pp. 513-36.

"Yorkshire Liberalism During the First World War," The Historical Journal, XXXII, 1 (March, 1989), pp. 107-29.

"The Origins of Liberal Politics, 1830-1874," The Journal of British Studies, XVIII, 1 (January, 1989), pp. 75-89 (review article).

"The Limitations of the New Liberalism: The Politics and Political Thought of John Clifford," Albion, XVI, 1 (Spring, 1984), pp. 21-39.

"Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and the Liberal Imperialists," The Journal of British Studies, XIII, 1 (Fall, 1983), pp. 105-24.

"Liberalism and the Progressive Alliance in the Constituencies, 1900-1914: Three Case Studies," The Historical Journal, XXVI, 3 (September, 1983), pp. 617-40.