The British system has been radically transformed in recent decades, far more than most of us realise. As acclaimed political scientist and bestselling author Anthony King shows, this transformation lies at the heart of British politics today. Imagining - or pretending - that the British political system and Britain's place in the world have not greatly changed, our political leaders consistently promise more than they can perform. Political and economic power is now widely dispersed both inside and outside the UK, but Westminster politicians still talk the language of Attlee and Churchill. How exactly has the British system changed? Where does power now lie? In Who Governs Britain?, King offers the first assessment in many years of Britain's governing arrangements as a whole, providing much needed context for the 2015 general election.

A Pelican Introduction: Who Governs Britain?

Politics & Social Sciences

King, Anthony

Politics & Government

Pelican

Launched on a wave of euphoria in 1981, the SDP aroused the hopes and enthusiasm of millions of people. Promising to break the mould of British politics, its leaders included three of the most respected figures in British public life--Roy Jenkins, David Owen, and Shirley Williams. But despite winning with the Liberals a quarter of the vote in two general elections, by the autumn of 1987 it had disintegrated amidst acrimony and bitter in-fighting. This book, based on unprecedented access to the SDP's archive and extensive interviews with all the leading players, chronicles the party's short but turbulent history and analyses in detail the reasons for its early success and its ultimate demise.

SDP: The Birth, Life, and Death of the Social Democratic Party

Business & Money

Crewe, Ivor

International

Oxford University Press

SDP: The Birth, Life and Death of the Social Democratic Party

How do small groups of combat soldiers perform on the battlefield and maintain their cohesion under fire? Why are they willing to fight for each other? These questions have long intrigued social scientists, military historians, and philosophers. Based on extensive research and drawing on graphic analysis of close quarter combat from the Somme to Sangin, this book puts forward a novel and challenging answer to this question. Against the common presumption of the virtues of the citizen soldier, the author claims that, in fact, the infantry platoon of the mass twentieth century army typically performed poorly and demonstrated low levels of cohesion in combat. With inadequate time and resources to train their troops for the industrial battlefield, citizen armies typically relied on appeals to masculinity, nationalism, and ethnicity to unite their troops and to encourage them to fight. By contrast, cohesion among today's professional soldiers is generated and sustained quite differently. While concepts of masculinity and patriotism are not wholly irrelevant, the combat performance of professional soldiers is based primarily on drills which are inculcated through intense training regimes. Consequently, the infantry platoon has become a highly skilled team capable of collective virtuosity in combat. The increasing importance of training, competence, and drills to the professional infantry soldier has not only changed the character of cohesion in the twenty-first century platoon, but it has also allowed for a wider social membership of this group. Soldiers are no longer included or excluded into the platoon on the basis of their skin colour, ethnicity, social background, sexuality, or even sex (women are increasingly being included in the infantry) but their professional competence alone: can they do the job? In this way, the book traces a profound transformation in the western way of warfare to shed light on wider processes of change not only in the armed forces but in civilian society as well. This book is a project of the Oxford Programme on the Changing Character of War.

The Combat Soldier: Infantry Tactics and Cohesion in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

History

Military

The British Constitution

In the latter part of the nineteenth century Walter Bagehot wrote a classic account of the British constitution as it had developed during Queen Victoria's reign. He argued that the late Victorian constitution was not at all what people thought it was. Anthony King argues that the same is true at the beginning of this century. Most people are aware that a series of major constitutional changes has taken place, but few recognize that their cumulative effect has been to change entirely the nature of Britain's constitutional structure. The old constitution has gone. The author insists that the new constitution is a mess, but one that we can make the best of. The British Constitution is neither a reference book nor a textbook. Like Bagehot's classic, it is written with wit and mordant humor--by someone who is a journalist and political commentator as well as a distinguished academic. The author maintains that, while the new British constitution is a mess, there is no going back now. "As always", he says, "nostalgia is a good companion but a bad guide." Far from shying away from the thorniest issues facing the British polity today, the author grapples with them head on. He offers a trenchant analysis of the increasingly divergent relationship between England, Scotland and Wales in the light of devolution and a devastating critique of the reformed House of Lords, whose benches, the author fears, risk being adorned by "a miscellaneous assemblage of party hacks, political careerists, clapped-out retired or defeated MPs, has-beens, never-were's and never-could-possibly-be's." The book is a Bagehot for the 21st Century - the product of a lifetime's reflection on the topic, and essential reading for anyone with an interest in the nature and future of British political life.

Legal Theory & Systems

In the latter part of the nineteenth century Walter Bagehot wrote a classic account of the British constitution as it had developed during Queen Victoria's reign. He argued that the late Victorian constitution was not at all what people thought it was. Anthony King argues that the same is true at the beginning of this century. Most people are aware that a series of major constitutional changes has taken place, but few recognize that their cumulative effect has been to change entirely the nature of Britain's constitutional structure. The old constitution has gone. The author insists that the new constitution is a mess, but one that we can make the best of. The British Constitution is neither a reference book nor a textbook. Like Bagehot's classic, it is written with wit and mordant humor-by someone who is a journalist and political commentator as well as a distinguished academic. The author maintains that, while the new British constitution is a mess, there is no going back now. "As always", he says, "nostalgia is a good companion but a bad guide." Far from shying away from the thorniest issues facing the British polity today, the author grapples with them head on. He offers a trenchant analysis of the increasingly divergent relationship between England, Scotland and Wales in the light of devolution and a devastating critique of the reformed House of Lords, whose benches, the author fears, risk being adorned by "a miscellaneous assemblage of party hacks, political careerists, clapped-out retired or defeated M.P.s, has-beens, never-were's and never-could-possibly-be's." The book is a Bagehot for the 21st Century-the product of a lifetime's reflection on the topic, and essential reading for anyone with an interest in the nature and future of British political life.

Exploring the spatial and cultural links between metropolitan core and colonial periphery centres, the author argues a case for a global approach to understanding modern cities.

Global Cities: Post-Imperialism and the Internationalization of London (International Library of Sociology)

Social Sciences

Routledge

Spaces of Global Cultures (Architext)

This book brings together a series of new and historical case studies to show how different phases of globalization are transforming the built environment. Taking a broad interdisciplinary approach, the author draws on sociological, geographical, cultural and postcolonial studies to provide a critical account of the development of three key concepts: global culture, post colonialism, and modernity. Subsequent case studies examine how global economic, political and cultural forces shape the forms of architectural and urban modernity in globalized suburbs and spaces in major cities worldwide.  The first book to combine global and postcolonial theoretical approaches to the built environment and to illustrate these with examples, Spaces of Global Cultures argues for a more historical and interdisciplinary understanding of globalization: one that places material space and the built environment at the centre and calls for new theories to address new conditions.

Spaces of Global Cultures: Architecture, Urbanism, Identity (Architext)

Reference

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by King, Anthony. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by King, Anthony

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by King, Anthony. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

A Pelican Introduction: Who Governs Britain?

SDP: The Birth, Life, and Death of the Social Democratic Party

SDP: The Birth, Life and Death of the Social Democratic Party

The Combat Soldier: Infantry Tactics and Cohesion in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

The British Constitution

The British Constitution

The Combat Soldier: Infantry Tactics and Cohesion in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

Global Cities: Post-Imperialism and the Internationalization of London (International Library of Sociology)

Spaces of Global Cultures: Architecture, Urbanism, Identity (Architext)

Spaces of Global Cultures (Architext)