Lawrence Goldman's publications

Politics and Culture in Victorian Britain: Essays in Memory of Colin Matthew
Edited by Peter Ghosh and Lawrence Goldman
(Oxford, 2006)

In the last twenty years one of the classical arenas for British historical writing - the politics of Victorian Britain - has ceased to be an obvious or self-evidently important subject. Facing up to this challenge, the historians who have contributed to this volume explore central aspects of that history. They continue to uphold the centrality of politics to Victorian Britain, but suggest that politics must be viewed more broadly, as a concern pervading almost all spheres of life, just as Victorians themselves would have done.

The specific occasion for these essays was as a tribute to the memory of the late Colin Matthew, one of the most eminent recent historians of Victorian Britain, and the founding editor of the Oxford DNB. Colin was himself determined to uphold the contemporary relevance of Victorian political tradition, and to explore the interface between 'politics' and 'culture'. Reflection on his intellectual achievement is a second distinctive component of this book.

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The Blind Victorian: Henry Fawcett and British Liberalism
Edited by Lawrence Goldman
(Cambridge, 2003)

When Henry Fawcett died in 1884 he was among the most famous men of his age. From a relatively humble background he had risen to become professor of political economy at Cambridge, a Liberal MP, and a minister in Gladstone's second government. And he had achieved all this despite being blinded at the age of twenty-five in a shooting accident. Indeed, he was probably the first blind MP in British history. This book examines aspects of his life and career—his personal life, including his friendship with the critic and writer, Leslie Stephen, and his marriage to Millicent Garret Fawcett, the famous feminist; his influential contribution to Victorian culture as a friend and disciple of John Stuart Mill; his influential role as a popularizer of economic thought from his position at Cambridge; his political outlook and campaigns as a radical liberal who often opposed Gladstone, his party leader, for his timidity.

Science, Reform, and Politics in Victorian Britain: The Social Science Association, 1857–1886
Lawrence Goldman
(Cambridge, 2002)

This book is a study of the relationships between social thought, social policy, and politics in Victorian Britain. Lawrence Goldman focuses on the activity of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, known as the Social Science Association. For three decades this served as a forum for the discussion of Victorian social questions and was an influential adviser to governments; its history discloses how social policy was made in those years. The association, which attracted many powerful contributors, including politicians, civil servants, intellectuals, and reformers, had influence over policy and legislation on matters as diverse as public health and women's legal and social emancipation. The SSA reveals the complex roots of social science and sociology buried in the non-academic milieu of nineteenth-century reform. And its intellectual influence in the United States and Europe allows for a comparative approach to political and intellectual development in this period.

Dons and Workers: Oxford and Adult Education since 1850
Lawrence Goldman
(Oxford, 1995)

Dons and Workers is a history of adult education in England. It focuses on the University of Oxford, whose leading contribution to this movement presents an unfamiliar portrait of this 'elitist' university and its influence on the nation. Lawrence Goldman considers the relationship between intellectuals and the working class over the past century and a half, examining the role of adult education in the evolution from late Victorian liberalism to twentieth-century socialism.
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