The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. It is published daily when Congress is in session. The Congressional Record began publication in 1873. Debates for sessions prior to 1873 are recorded in The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States (1789-1824), the Register of Debates in Congress (1824-1837), and the Congressional Globe (1833-1873)

This volume explores the role of the Speaker and the Lord Chancellor in the Westminster Parliament before the advent of democracy, setting it beside the practice at Dublin and Edinburgh over the same period, and the more recent history of the role at London and Washington. First in-depth study since the mid-1960s of how Speakers and the Speakership have operated in Parliament in Britain Includes contribution by the former Speaker of the House of Commons, Baroness Boothroyd, describing her own tenure of the Speakership Covers practice at Westminster and at Dublin and Edinburgh, and a comparison of Speakers at Westminster and Washington during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Composed of papers from a conference held at the House of Commons in April 2008