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Dangerfield is talking about something far more general, he is suggesting that a certain outlook, a certain set of ideas, a certain England, disappeared because of the events of 1910-14. In that book, ‘The Strange Death of Liberal England’, Dangerfield’s thesis was ‘that between the death of Edward and the War there was a considerable hiatus in English history’ and that ‘it was in 1910 that fires long smouldering in the English spirit flared up, so that by the end of 1913 Liberal England was reduced to ashes.' 1 But what exactly is this concept of Liberal England? Although much of the book is spent discussing the Liberal party and parliamentary politics, clearly Dangerfield does not mean that the Liberal Party died in this period. As a portrait of England enmeshed in the turbulence of new movements, which often led to violence against the pieties of Liberal England—until it was overwhelmed by the greatest violence of all, World War I—this extraordinary book has continued to exert a powerful influence on the way historians have observed early twentieth-century England.The title of this essay is a reference to the book by George Dangerfield, published in 1935. The Strange Death of Liberal England is one of the most important books of the English past, a prime example that history can be abiding literature. Few books of history retain their relevance and vitality after more than sixty years. This is a classic account, first published in 1935, of the dramatic upheaval and political change that overwhelmed England in the period 1910-1914. After a resounding electoral triumph in 1906, the Liberals formed the government of the most powerful nation on earth, yet within a few years the House of Lords lost its absolute veto over legislation, the Home Rule crisis brought Ireland to the brink of civil war and led to an army mutiny, the campaign for woman's suffrage created widespread civil disorder and discredited the legal and penal systems, and an unprecedented wave of strikes swept the land. At the beginning of the twentieth century England's empire spanned the globe, its economy was strong, and its political system seemed immune to the ills that inflicted so many other countries.