Parliament: The Biography (Volume II - Reform)

Two centuries of reform, revolution and political intrigue in Chris Bryant's epic biography of Parliament

A sweeping history of Britain's political system... One of the most thoughtful accounts I have read

Parliament is a very good read, with interesting anecdotes and observations enriched by the fact the author is an MP

CHRIS BRYANT is a British Labour Party Politician who has been Member of Parliament since 2001. He was Minister for Europe in the last Labour Government and Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and Shadow Leader of the House of Commons in the Shadow Cabinet. 
Before entering parliament Chris was a priest in the Church of England. His previous books include biographies of Sir Stafford Cripps and Glenda Jackson as well as, most recently, his two-volume Parliament: a Biography.

Over the last two hundred years Parliament has witnessed and effected dramatic and often turbulent change. Political parties rose – and fell. The old aristocratic order passed away. The vote was won for the working classes and, eventually, for women. The world was torn apart by two extraordinarily bloody wars. And individual politicians were cheered for their altruism or their bravery and jeered for their sexual or financial misdemeanours. 
This second volume of Chris Bryant’s majestic Parliament: The Biography has a cast of characters that includes some of British history’s most famous names: the Duke of Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, Gladstone, Disraeli, Lloyd George, Churchill and Thatcher. Its recurring theme is reform and innovation, but it also lays bare obsessive respect for the past and a dedication to evolution rather than revolution, which has left us with a fudged constitution still perilously dependent on custom, convention and gentlemen’s agreements. 
This is riveting, flawlessly researched and accessible popular history for anyone with an interest in why modern Britain is the nation it is today.

Parliament: The Biography (Volume I - Ancestral Voices)

The fascinating and authoritative history of the institution at the cultural heart of Britain

This magnificent book... Bryant is a fine historian. His understanding of political processes shines through.  After this epic the next volume will be eagerly awaited

A bravura ‘biography’ of Parliament… both charming and important… A carefully constructed and lucidly written adventure story about the institution that – like it or not – still shapes our lives

Admirably comprehensive… and written in the kind of lucid, elegant prose now rarely associated with our elected representatives

a fascinating study into the lives and reputations of those who, honourable or not, have sat as parliamentarians... compelling reading

This book tells the story of our greatest national institution. It is well-written, contains much truth, and a great deal of important information. It is a wonderful idea.

Lively... a warts-and-all account of how MPs have first survived and subsequently shaped and initiated policy

This is a wonderful, wry view of the history of parliament "from the inside". Chris Bryant is a great myth-buster. If you ever thought that modern MPs were more corrupt or worse behaved than their predecessors, then read on. You'll find it's not quite so simple.

A remarkably readable and scholarly account of the emergence of the British Parliament over its first five hundred years or so

A wonderfully iconoclastic yet affectionate history ... Bryant tells the story with clarity and verve.

Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of the History of the Church, Oxford University

The history of Parliament is the history of the United Kingdom itself. It has a cast of thousands. Some were ambitious, visionary and altruistic. Others were hot-headed, violent and self-serving. Few were unambiguously noble. Yet their rowdy confrontations, their campaigning zeal and their unstable alliances framed our nation. 
 
This first of two volumes takes us on a 500-year journey from Parliament's earliest days in the thirteenth century through the turbulent years of the Wars of the Roses and the upheavals of the Civil Wars, and up to 1801, when Parliament – and the United Kingdom, embracing Scotland and Ireland – emerged in a modern form. 
 
Chris Bryant tells this epic tale through the lives of the myriad MPs, lords and bishops who passed through Parliament. It is the vivid, colourful biography of a cast of characters whose passions and obsessions, strengths and weaknesses laid the foundations of modern democracy.

Chris Bryant

You can't deal with today's injustices without knowing how we got here in the first place. If this parade of arrogant, snobbish and greedy toffs doesn't get you to demand change, nothing will. This is fascinating, authoritative and radical history at its best. It lays bare the politics of jealousy and the sense of entitlement that has meant so few have owned so much and lorded it over so many for so long. The duke of Westminster won't want you to read it, which is why you should.

A proudly partisan history of the British aristocracy - which scores some shrewd hits against the upper class themselves, and the nostalgia of the rest of us for their less endearing eccentricities. A great antidote to Downton Abbey.

A riveting, insightful, gripping and horrifying account of how the UK aristocracy gained and maintained power right up to today.

Forget celebrity infidelity and drug abuse. Here is one of our greatest scandals – our class-ridden society. That's what should be exercising the Daily Mail.

Entitled is an energetic and engaging response to Whig historians in the tradition of Marxist historians. It is annoying and readable in equal measure.

Chris Bryant gives us a lively reminder of why we should "put not our trust in Princes" - or other landed knaves whose main achievement was to be born

A Critical History of the British Aristocracy

"A proudly partisan history of the British aristocracy - which scores some shrewd hits against the upper class themselves, and the nostalgia of the rest of us for their less endearing eccentricities. A great antidote to Downton Abbey." (Mary Beard) 
 
Exploring the extraordinary social and political dominance enjoyed by the British aristocracy over the centuries, Entitled seeks to explain how a tiny number of noble families rose to such a position in the first place. It reveals the often nefarious means they have employed to maintain their wealth, power and prestige and examines the greed, ambition, jealousy and rivalry which drove aristocratic families to guard their interests with such determination. In telling their history, Entitled introduces a cast of extraordinary characters: fierce warriors, rakish dandies, political dilettantes, charming eccentrics, arrogant snobs and criminals who quite literally got away with murder.

Chris Bryant

Praise for Entitled

You can't deal with today's injustices without knowing how we got here in the first place. If this parade of arrogant, snobbish and greedy toffs doesn't get you to demand change, nothing will. This is fascinati ...

A proudly partisan history of the British aristocracy - which scores some shrewd hits against the upper class themselves, and the nostalgia of the rest of us for their less endearing eccentricities. A great antid ...

A riveting, insightful, gripping and horrifying account of how the UK aristocracy gained and maintained power right up to today.

You can't deal with today's injustices without knowing how we got here in the first place. If this parade of arrogant, snobbish and greedy toffs doesn't get you to demand change, nothing will. This is fascinati ...

A proudly partisan history of the British aristocracy - which scores some shrewd hits against the upper class themselves, and the nostalgia of the rest of us for their less endearing eccentricities. A great antid ...

A riveting, insightful, gripping and horrifying account of how the UK aristocracy gained and maintained power right up to today.

You can't deal with today's injustices without knowing how we got here in the first place. If this parade of arrogant, snobbish and greedy toffs doesn't get you to demand change, nothing will. This is fascinati ...

A proudly partisan history of the British aristocracy - which scores some shrewd hits against the upper class themselves, and the nostalgia of the rest of us for their less endearing eccentricities. A great antid ...

A riveting, insightful, gripping and horrifying account of how the UK aristocracy gained and maintained power right up to today.

Books by Chris Bryant

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