By scrutinizing the major Victorian political thinkers' perceptions and representations of France this book shows how comparisons with the country on the other side of the Channel, its politics, civilization, and the French 'national character' contributed to nineteenth-century Britain's self-definition. While the utterances on France of several other figures are also examined, the main focus is on Walter Bagehot, John Stuart Mill, Matthew Arnold, Lord Acton, Thomas Carlyle, Nassau William Senior, James Fitzjames Stephen, William Rathbone Greg, Thomas Babington Macaulay, John Morley, and Frederic Harrison.

Banking historiography often does not sufficiently take into account bankers’ deliberations of their decision making, but rather limits investigation to considerations of profit maximisation. This book shows that the decision-making processes of nineteenth-century bankers contemplating high-risk financial markets like Greece are just as complex as present-day investment decisions. The book, now published in English after a first German edition, offers in-depth studies of decision making in concrete historical situations, considering political and economic circumstances and also the individual background of the actors concerned, including a reflection on the influence of cultural movements such as Philhellenism. Employing methodological inspirations from the field of behavioural finance, the book analyses a broad range of published and unpublished English, French, Greek, German and Swiss sources on European investment in Greece between 1821 and the Balkan wars. Additionally, rich insights into Greek economic history, the economic integration of the country into Europe and long-lasting European stereotypes of Southern Europe and Greece are provided; this furthers understanding of the historical background of the Greek financial crisis after 2009. In combining the perspectives of financial, economic, political and cultural history, this book is primarily significant for students of various fields of historiography. Due to its strong awareness of methodological questions, it is also of great interest to academic historians. In addition, the strong public interest in the Greek financial crisis after 2009 and its consequences for Europe will, thirdly, attract the interest of a broader public.

'A rich and thoughtful book.' History 'A magnificent empirical resource accompanied by a subtle and powerful framework of interpretation...It is not often that historical scholarship is so effectively harnessed to the sociological imagination.' American Journal of Sociology 'This is a masterpiece of social movement analysis by an author at the peak of his analytical powers making full use of one of the most extensive evidence files available.' Mobilization Between 1750 and 1840 ordinary British people abandoned such time-honored forms of protest as collective seizures of grain, the sacking of buildings, public humiliation, and physical abuse in favor of marches, petition drives, public meetings, and other sanctioned routines of social movement politics. The change created - for the first time anywhere - mass participation in national politics. Charles Tilly is the first to address the depth and significance of the transformations in popular collective action during this period. The author elucidates four distinct phases in the transformation to mass political participation and identifies the forms and occasions for collective action that characterized and dominated each. He provides rich descriptions, not only of a wide variety of popular protests, but also of such influential figures as John Wilkes, Lord George Gordon, William Cobbett, and Daniel O'Connell.

1. Introduction, W G Runciman The View from Within 2. The History of Sociology in Britain, A H Halsey 3. What Should be Done About the History of Sociology?, Jennifer Platt 4. Sociology in Briatin in the Twentieth Century: Differentiation and Establishment, Martin Bulmer The View from Without 5. Sociology and Social History: Partnership, Rivalry, or Mutual Incomprehension?, Roderick Floud and Pat Thane 6. Not Really a View from Without: the Relations of Social Anthropology and Sociology, J D Y Peel 7. Demography's British History and its Relation to Sociology, John Ermisch The View from Abroad 8. The View from a French Sociologist, Dominique Schnapper 9. A View from Sweden, Robert Erikson 10. A View from Europe, Colin Crouch 11. Some General Remarks, John Scott.

This is the most comprehensive and up-to-date synthesis of current research on the social conditions, experiences and reactions of working people during the period 1750 - 1850.