The First World War was a period of turbulent and unprecedented political upheaval that witnessed contrasting fortunes for Britain's major political parties. This book demonstrates how the Conservative Party was able to respond effectively in these years by refining a wartime patriotism that ensured its unity as a party, helped define its electoral fortunes and shaped ideological cohesion. Concepts of patriotism determined not only attitudes to the prosecution of the war, to voluntary and forced military enlistment, but also to class politics, Irish Unionism, democratic reform and the relationship between citizen and state. Fundamental conclusions about modern Conservatism emerge: its organic ideological genesis into a property-defending party; its peculiar willingness and capacity to adapt not only to the immense challenges of 'total war', but also to the new political climate awakened by the conflict. Conservatism was therefore at once flexible and ideological. Filling the historiographical gap created by an overemphasis upon its rival Liberal and Labour parties, and using previously unused party sources, this study sheds new light on many aspects of the war, of Conservative Party history and its regeneration following three disastrous general election defeats in succession, and of British politics in the twentieth century.

Britannia's Zealots, Volume I opens the first longitudinal study to examine the Conservative Right from the late-19th century to the present day. British Conservatism has always contained a significant section fundamentally opposed to progressive reform. A permanent minority in Parliament, dissident right-wing Conservatives nevertheless had allies in the press and sympathy among grassroots party members enabling them to create crises in the media and at party meetings. N.C. Fleming charts the evolution of reactionary politics from its preoccupation with the Protestant constitution to its fixation with the prestige and strength of Britain's global empire. He examines the overlooked ways in which Conservative Right parliamentarians shaped their party's policies and propaganda, in and out of office, and their relationships with the press and ordinary activists. He seeks to demonstrate that this influence could be circumscribing, and on occasion highly disruptive, with consequences which remain relevant for today's Conservative party. Britannia's Zealots, Volume I will be of great interest to academics and students of British history, right-wing politics, imperialism, and 20th-century history.

In The Impact of Illness on World Leaders, Bert E. Park explores the relationship between leadership and neurologic illness. Basing his study on a rigorous examination of primary and secondary source material from medicine, history, and political science, Park diagnoses illnesses which affected the thinking and actions of Anthony Eden and Adolf Hitler, among others. He discusses the historical situations in which these political leaders functioned and the effects their illnesses might have had on the decisions they made. Park argues that the impact of aging and disease on leadership abilities is an important, potentially devastating problem which has been ignored by the people in a position to deal with it. Physicians who attend men in power, supported by government officials and politicians, often disguise their patients' infirmities and keep them in office long after they are able to function effectively. In those few instances when the problem has been addressed, it has often been done by journalists or other persons not qualified to make a medical judgment about a leader's health, and they have relayed erroneous information (e.g., the myth of Hitler's syphilis). Part of the goal of The Impact of Illness on World Leaders is to correct such popular misconceptions. Park concludes his study of leadership and illness with suggestions for monitoring the health of leaders and deposing them if their health compromises their ability to lead.