Institutions, Individuals and Modern British History

This collection of essays from renowned contributors celebrating the influence of David Cannadine examines the place of Britain's political and cultural institutions, and the impact of individuals in their formation and evolution. The focus of this Festschrift is the steady making and remaking of British political and cultural institutions since 1800, and the importance of individual agency in that process. Such focus reflects the preoccupations of one of Britain's most prominent professional and public historians: Sir David Cannadine. Cannadine has written on the changing public face of the monarchy and on the impact of aristocratic sensibilities on modern British political culture. He has examined some of Britain's most well-established institutions, and interpreted the British empire as a project to sustain and promote social hierarchy. In Cannadine's writings on aristocracy, empire, institutional life and national historical memory, individuals appear as history-makers, but always situated in their social and cultural contexts. Essays in this volume draw inspiration from all these themes. Among the institutions discussed are Parliament, the Primrose League, the civil service, the London Library, the Institute of Historical Research and the National Portrait Gallery. The role of individuals in context features in essays on Benjamin Disraeli, Henry Drummond Wolff, Winston Churchill, the museum director Roy Strong and the National Park publicists Walter Greenwood and Laurie Lee. Tensions between intellectual work and institutional public service are uncovered in essays on Noel Annan, Geoffrey Crowther and Owen Chadwick. Authority (political, social, cultural) - its construction and re-construction - is the central concern guiding the essays. An introductory section discusses the many-sided work of Cannadine himself, both as a historian and as a servant of institutions.