The Rise of Democracy in Britain, 1830-1918. (Shorter Notices).

The Rise of Democracy in Britain, 1830-1918, by Ian Machin (London: Macmillan, 2001; pp. 173. 15.50 [pounds sterling]).

This book, which forms part of Macmillan's British Studies series, edited by Jeremy Black, offers a standard account, based on a wide range of secondary sources, of parliamentary reform between 1832 and 1914. The approach is determinedly Whiggish, with the Reform Acts being seen as part of a smooth evolutionary process whose end-product is universal suffrage. It gives the impression that the main historiographical issues have been settled, and therefore fails to convey the excitement of a subject whose conclusions can never be more than provisional. …