Reviewed by Iain Finlayson
Grab an Italian masterpiece for less
Britain has rarely tolerated revolutionaries, but it has often been driven to liberty by radicals. Vallance gives a roll call of men and women who made a stand for personal and political rights and freedoms, from Alfred the Great, who routed the Danes in 878, to David Davis who resigned on a point of principle as an MP in 2008. Britain has often exported or exiled its home-grown radicals: these were not only politicians and trade unionists, but peasants, poets and pamphleteers. Vallance has a good, liberal, democratic tale to tell, and he whips it along at a smart clip through a history of radical success stories.
A Radical History of Britain: Visionaries, Rebels and Revolutionaries by Edward Vallance; Little, Brown, £25; 639pp Buy this book

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