LAUSR

The guiding thesis of Angus Hawkins’s Victorian Political Culture: ‘Habits of Heart & Mind’, is the beguilingly simple one that Victorian political values rested on the Shibboleths of history, morality and community, and that the differing political outlooks of radicals, Liberals, Conservatives and even socialists throughout the century can be traced back to their very different interpretations of this triumvirate, which ‘in a shifting world ... provide Victorians with essential reference points for managing change’ (p. 387). It is a thesis which Hawkins proceeds to elaborate in great detail over nearly 400 pages of elegant prose, drawing on an impressive range of literature and the author’s own considerable store of accumulated knowledge.