Routledge Historical Biographies
2 total works
In this well-structured, fluent and lively account, Paula Bartley uses new archival material to assess whether Pankhurst should be seen as a heroine or a tyrant, a conservative or a progressive.
Emmeline Pankhurst was the most prominent campaigner for the women's right to vote and was transformed into a popular heroine of the early twentieth century. Early in life she was attracted to socialism, she grew into an entrenched and militant suffragette and ended up as a Conservative Party candidate.
This new biography examines the guiding principles that underpinned all of Emmeline Pankhurst's actions, and places her achievements within a wider social and political context.
Paula Bartley’s Queen Victoria examines Victorian Britain from the perspective of the Queen. Victoria’s personal and political actions are discussed in relation to contemporary shifts in Britain’s society, politics and culture, examining to what extent they did – or did not – influence events throughout her reign.
Drawing from contemporary sources, including Queen Victoria’s own diaries, as well as the most recent scholarship, the book contextualises Victoria historically by placing her in the centre of an unparalleled period of innovation and reform, in which the social and political landscape of Britain, and its growing empire, was transformed. Balancing Victoria’s private and public roles, it will examine the cultural paradox of the Queen’s rule in relation to the changing role of women: she was a devoted wife, prolific mother and obsessive widow, who was also Queen of a large Empire and Empress of India.
Marrying cultural history, gender history and other histories ‘from below’ with high politics, war and diplomacy, this is a concise and accessible introduction to Queen Victoria’s life for students of Victorian Britain and the British Empire.