This is an important study of British radicalism in the years between the collapse of Chartism in 1848 and the rise of Gladstonian liberalism in the 1860s. Set against the backdrop of revolution and reaction in Europe, the Crimean War, and the Indian Mutiny, this wide-ranging book looks at how and why radicalism lost its hold on British politics.

`Professor Epstein may lay claim to be both an authentic disciple of the Thompsons and one of the most skilful and lucid of Stedman Jones's critics ... a book entirely coherent in its concerns, but possessing the compact force associated with the essay form ... a miscellaneous, though extremely erudite, compendium of data studded with striking apercus in detail.' Times Literary Supplement `The present volume is clearly the outcome of an industriously pursued thesis.' Times Higher Educational Supplement `The work is a substantial contribution to the understanding of this period,' Choice `The bibliography, some forty ages in length, attests to the meticulous and comprehensive scholarship which informs Miles Taylor's impressive study of The Decline of English Radicalism. The book is not an account of the decline of radicalism but an original and convincing analysis of the formation of the parliamentary Liberal party.' John nelchem, University of Liverpool, EHR Jun.97 `Taylor's focus is on constitutionalism and parliamentary activity, and includes a careful study of constituency organisation and membership ... a major contribution to our understanding of the mid-Victorian period.' Gregory Claeys, University of London, Victorian Studies, Summer 1996 `Miles Taylor has uncovered the world of these parliamentary radicals with scrupulous scholarship and deft insight, and has traced the progress of their ideal in the climatic years of the late 1840s and 1850s ... He offers an excellent discussion of their major objectives ... this is a highly intelligent and rich account, not just of Radicalism, but also of parliamentary politics, in the 1850s, and the reader will profit from its analyses of most of the big set-pieces of the decade, especially the foreign policy debates.' J.P. Parry, Pembroke College, Cambridge, Parliamentary Hisotry 16/3