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George Dempster was a giant of a man who became one of the best-known and most deservedly popular Scotsman of his day. He served for thirty years as a Member of Parliament in Westminster and was closely involved with the expansion of British influence and trade across the world particularly in India and North America. This was the age of Empire building and intense rivalry between competing imperial powers, which led to protracted warfare. A lawyer by training, Dempster was at the heart of political and business life and his circle of friends was large and powerful. Yet power did not corrupt him and he was respected by allies and opponents alike, being known as 'Honest George'. Laird of estates at Skibo in Sutherland and Dunnichen in Angus, Dempster's energy was legendary and he used his talents as reformer, innovator, entrepreneur and developer to bring prosperity and jobs to disadvantaged regions of his beloved Scotland. Dempster was more than an observer of history; he made it. This highly detailed biography of a major but hitherto little known figure of the period gives a rare insight into the political life of the Georgian era, covering the growth of British rule in India, loss of North America during the War of Independence and the years of constant conflict with France. The Gentleman Usher, this superbly researched work with its copious illustrations, is an important and authoritative addition to the bibliography of Scottish history of the period.
What was the role of elected legislators? Was it to represent the opinions of constituents or to vote according to their informed opinions reflecting the needs of the kingdom? Most authorities have accepted Edmund Burke's depiction of 18th-century MPs, insisting it was their right to form their opinions without reference to the instructions of constituents. This study provides answers to these important questions and, in doing so, reveals that Burke's vision does not represent how the House of Commons functioned during the last two decades of the 18th century. Rather than focusing on specific issues or demographic groups, English MPs brings to the fore the legislative activity of a broad segment of late 18th-century English MPs. This book shows they were diligent legislators who attended to the needs of constituents, in the process developing strong connections with them. It demonstrates that these connections did not rest on shared beliefs in reformist ideologies except in, and around, the metropolis. Instead, they grew out of the members' timely and effective tending, session after session, to the host of measures brought forward by constituents and neighbours. McCahill explores, in fascinating detail, the consequences of this bond. In this book, McCahill draws from an impressive array of primary sources and secondary literature to combine a structural analysis with broad surveys and detailed case-studies. The result is an illuminating and a comprehensive account of the House of Commons between 1760 and 1790.
DIVEnlightenment’s Frontier is the first book to investigate the environmental roots of the Scottish Enlightenment. What was the place of the natural world in Adam Smith’s famous defense of free trade? Fredrik Albritton Jonsson recovers the forgotten networks of improvers and natural historians that sought to transform the soil, plants, and climate of Scotland in the eighteenth century. The Highlands offered a vast outdoor laboratory for rival liberal and conservative views of nature and society. But when the improvement schemes foundered toward the end of the century, northern Scotland instead became a crucible for anxieties about overpopulation, resource exhaustion, and the physical limits to economic growth. In this way, the rise and fall of the Enlightenment in the Highlands sheds new light on the origins of environmentalism./div
55,000 biographies of people who shaped the history of the British Isles and beyond, from the earliest times to the year 2002.
This volume offers a series of essays which explore the impact of print upon parliament and parliamentary affairs during the early modern period, with particular reference to the relations between parliament and the 'public'. The articles build upon historiographical interest in the 'print revolution' and the 'public sphere', as well as the working of parliament in the 'world beyond Westminster'. The specific topics covered include the exploitation of print by those who sought to petition parliament, and by those who sought to draw attention to issues of public concern such as financial corruption; the coverage of parliamentary proceedings in newspapers both national and local, and their benefit to lobbyists; developments in print media over the course of the early modern period and throughout Britain; and the motivation for, and development of, reporting of parliamentary speeches in print.
In his latest book, ‘Promise to Pay (Vol. I): Banks, Battles, and Bellies,’ Masood Rezvi lays bare the threads connecting banks to the funding of wars and the hunger so prevalent in large pockets of the population around the world. Unlike his earlier book “Tightening Noose of Poverty” where he draws mainly on his personal experience in rural banking in India, the current title tells a story spanning over four centuries of wars, famines, and banking intertwined in a meshwork of socio-economics. The narrative is supported by meticulously collected data from a diverse cross-section of sources. He convincingly argues that ‘banks and their power to create money out of thin air’ lie at the heart of major global issues. In this first volume, he lays the foundation of a larger narrative presenting a mechanism, not so hidden in the plain sight, of how the global financial market has been fueling major crises that the world is grappling today. From the funding of the British Raj of the pre-World War India by the Bank of England to the rise of the Federal Reserve, the author presents a picture of a roller-coaster ride the banks have been taking the world on. He steers clear through the mind-boggling cliché of the mainstream narrative of the current financial world order and puts the reader in charge by putting things in perspective. History is where the mold of the present is created, and Masood Rezvi has done his job well in describing that mold to make sense of the present. While the book has all the technical details necessary to navigate through the labyrinths of the financial system, the author has been extremely careful to present them in a manner comprehensible for a non-expert reader. The experts, on the other hand, will find the narrative refreshing in its approach, technical precision, and conclusions. This book is another step towards dissecting the mechanism of the current financial system that has created a divide between the rich and the poor, a gap too wide to be filled with just the promises to pay.