The Cambridge Constitutional History of the United Kingdom: Volume 1, Exploring the Constitution

Featuring contributions from leading scholars of history, law and politics, this path-breaking two-volume work traces the development of the United Kingdom's constitution from Anglo-Saxon times and explores its role in the creation, exercise and control of public power. Chapters in Volume One, entitled 'Exploring the Constitution', approach the constitution and its history from various scholarly perspectives, and provide historically sensitive discussions of constitutional actors and institutions, and of political traditions and transformations of the constitution. Together, the two volumes form the first, wide-ranging history of the constitution to be published for decades. By their cross-disciplinary approach, taking account of the latest legal, political and historical scholarship on the constitution, they fill a large gap in the literature of the constitution, and in political thought and British history.

Part I. Perspectives: 1. The historical constitution H. Kumarasingham; 2. Law and the constitution Peter Cane; 3. Political constitutionalism Richard Bellamy; 4. The economic constitution Tony Prosser; 5. Religion and the constitution to 1688 Pippa Catterall; 6. Religion and the constitution since the glorious revolution Pippa Catterall; 7. The social democratic constitution K. D. Ewing; 8. The constitution of rights Peter Cane; 9. The people and the constitution Vernon Bogdanor; 10. Constitutional theory and thought Jeffrey Goldsworthy; Part II. Actors and institutions: 11. Monarchy Edward Cavanagh; 12. Legislatures Mike Gordon; 13. The executive and the administration Janet McLean; 14. Judiciaries Joshua Getzler; 15. Coercive institutions Brice Dickson; 16. Locality, regionality, and centrality Luke Blaxill; 17. Political parties Robert Crowcroft; PART III. Politics: 18. Conservatism Asanga Welikala; 19. Liberalism Emily Jones; 20. Socialism Stephen Sedley; 21. Unionism James Mitchell and Alan Convery; 22. Nationalism Michael Keating.

Peter Cane has written widely in areas of public law, private law and legal theory. He is co-editor (with Lisa Ford and Mark McMillan) of The Cambridge Legal History of Australia and author of Controlling Administrative Power: An Historical Comparison (2016). He is a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy and Emeritus Distinguished Professor of the Australian National University.
H. Kumarasingham teaches at the University of Edinburgh. His work and interests cover the history and politics of the United Kingdom, the late British Empire and the Commonwealth. His publications include the collections Constitution-Maker: Selected Writings of Sir Ivor Jennings (2015) and Viceregalism: The Crown as Head of State in Political Crises in the Postwar Commonwealth (2020). He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.