Book review: Loyalism and radicalism in Lancashire, 1798-1815

This is an original and important study, the significance of which far exceeds its modest title. It is a regionally based and integrated account of politics, war and industrialisation during the Napoleonic period which explores and challenges both Linda Colley's account of the forging of British identity and E.P. Thompson's account of The Making of the English Working Class (1963; rev. ante, lxxxvi [1971], 574–87). Navickas opens by outlining the case for the development of ‘a Lancashire Britishness’, a portfolio of loyalist and radical elements which the contending interests were able to use against each other, against central government, and even occasionally against the French. There follows a multi-faceted account of the north-west region in the period of industrial revolution and war, drawing on a deep knowledge of the landscape, which will surprise many who still think of it in terms...