S. E. Finer

First published in 1952, this is a full-scale and definitive account of the life and work of Sir Edwin Chadwick. Among the sources used are the Chadwick Papers, the Peel, Place, Russell and Gladstone Papers, the Home Office, Treasury and Ministry of Health papers and the minutes and documents of the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers. Centred on this mass of material, this book demonstrates that the great social reforms of the Victorian age should be attributed, not so much to the Cabinets, but to the labours of a handful of civil servants. It also argues that Edwin Chadwick was the most influential of these civil servants and through this illuminating biography, Professor Finer gives an account of early Victorian administration as seen from inside. This book will be of interest to those studying Victorian social reform, the history of the welfare state and social policy.

First published in 1952, this is a full-scale and definitive account of the life and work of Sir Edwin Chadwick. Among the sources used are the Chadwick Papers, the Peel, Place, Russell and Gladstone Papers, the Home Office, Treasury and Ministry of Health papers and the minutes and documents of the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers. Centred on this mass of material, this book demonstrates that the great social reforms of the Victorian age should be attributed, not so much to the Cabinets, but to the labours of a handful of civil servants. It also argues that Edwin Chadwick was the most influential of these civil servants and through this illuminating biography, Professor Finer gives an account of early Victorian administration as seen from inside. This book will be of interest to those studying Victorian social reform, the history of the welfare state and social policy.

This volume opens with Tokugawa Japan and thence reviews the evidence on the Ching, Ottoman, and Mughal Empires, before turning to facets of the re-creation, modernization, and transplantation of the European state model. It concludes with the synoptic review of Pathways to the Modern State.

No one has hitherto had the breadth of imagination and intellectual boldness to describe and analyse government throughout recorded history and throughout the world. This unique study of government is the culmination of the work of the late S. E. Finer, one of the leading political scientists of the twentieth century. Ranging over 5,000 years, from the Sumerian city state to the modern European nation state, five themes emerge: state-building, military formats, belief systems, social stratification, and timespan. The three volumes examine both representative and exceptional polities, and focus on political elites of different types. The first volume, Ancient Monarchies and Empires opens with Finers masterly Conceptual Prologue, setting out the entire scope and structure of The History. He goes on to consider early examples of the predominantly palace type of polity, notably in respect of the the Kingdoms of Egypt and the Empires of Assyria, Persia, Han China, and Rome; in

No one has hitherto had the breadth of imagination and intellectual boldness to describe and analyse government throughout recorded history and throughout the world. This unique study of government is the culmination of the work of the late S. E. Finer, one of the leading political scientists of the twentieth century.

No one has hitherto had the breadth of imagination and intellectual boldness to describe and analyse government throughout recorded history and throughout the world. This unique study of government is the culmination of the work of the late S. E. Finer, one of the leading political scientists of the twentieth century. Ranging over 5,000 years, from the Sumerian city state to the modern European nation state, five themes emerge: state-building, military formats, belief systems, social stratification, and timespan. The three volumes examine both representative and exceptional polities, and focus on political elites of different types. Ancient Monarchies and Empires opens with Finer's masterly Conceptual Prologue, setting out the entire scope and structure of The History. Books One and Two then consider early examples of the predominantly `palace' type of polity, notably in respect of the Kingdoms of Egypt and the Empires of Assyria, Persia, Han China, and Rome; interspersed with consideration of the `exceptional' Jewish Kingdoms and the Greek and Roman Republics. Professor Finer's cogent descriptive analysis offers both an invaluable reference resource and an exhilarating journey across time and space.

No one has hitherto had the breadth of imagination and intellectual boldness to describe and analyse government throughout recorded history and throughout the world. This unique study of government is the culmination of the work of the late S. E. Finer, one of the leading political scientists of the twentieth century. Ranging over 5,000 years, from the Sumerian city state to the modern European nation state, five themes emerge: state-building, military formats, belief systems, social stratification, and timespan. The three volumes examine both representative and exceptional polities, and focus on political elites of different types. Empires, Monarchies, and the Modern State (Books Four and Five) opens with Tokugawa Japan and thence reviews the evidence of Ch'ing, Ottoman, and Mughal Empires, before turning to facets of the re-creation, `modernization', and transplantation of the European state model. It concludes with the synoptic review of `Pathways to the Modern State'. Professor Finer's cogent descriptive analysis offers both an invaluable reference resource and an exhilarating journey across time and space.

A political scientist and a comparative lawyer have joined forces to produce a revised and expanded version of the late S. E. Finer's classic Five Constitutions. Their book gives the present texts of four important constitutions, the American, German, French, and Russian. It adds the basic political structure of the European Union, and provides a full account of the British constitution in the terms revealed by examination of the other texts. A general chapter on comparing constitutions is complemented by careful analytical and alphabetical indexes.