Summary
This is a short book which, arguably, ought to be a long one. Yet considerations beyond economic stringency suggest the usefulness of brevity. It is the point of the book to argue a case and not to exhaust an area of research. It is not the intention to examine Liberalism in all its facets but rather to explore the mind of its adherents as it is revealed in the activities of the Liberal elite. Neither is it intended to examine the psephological history of the Liberal party and its electorate. Attention will be directed instead at the more limited problems posed by the relationship between Liberals and their Liberalism and what they thought it meant. The book should be seen, that is to say, as a commentary on Liberal cosmology during a period when that cosmology was understood by its adherents to be under frontal attack.
Between 1914 and 1929 the custodians of traditional Liberalism lost almost everything they most valued in political life. Their loss of political power was most noticeably reflected in the performance of the Liberal party at the polls, and it has been this aspect of the Liberal decline which has attracted the attention of historians. But there are related and possibly more fundamental perspectives to be noticed. The war and its aftermath uprooted the political world that Liberals had understood and substituted something which seemed by comparison brash, cheap and contemptible. It is the frame of mind which formulated judgements such as this that is made the object of study here.
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- The Liberal Mind 1914-29 , pp. 1 - 6Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1977