Making Aristocracy Work: The Peerage and the Political System in Britain, 1884-1914

Making Aristocracy Work explores the political role of the British peerage in the thirty years before the First World War. It charts its transition from ruling class to embattled faction, analysing the response of the peers to the challenge of democracy and their impact on the constitutional order which emerged from the turbulent politics of the late Victorian and Edwardian era. Andrew Adonis opens with a study of the House of Lords, assessing its strengths and weaknesses as a political institution and offering new interpretations of the constitutional crises of 1884-5 and 1909-11. He goes on to show how, at a time when the anachronism of a hereditary peerage was increasingly recognized, its members were able to justify themselves by their works. A readable book, thoroughly grounded in the aristocracy's rich archives, Making Aristocracy Work is an important contribution to our understanding of the development of Britain's modern political system.