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George Owers is an editor and writer. Educated at Cambridge, where he received his PhD on 18th-century politics, he gained early experience of the viciousness of party rivalry in the low stakes world of local government, becoming a city councillor aged twenty-one. He now lives in the Cambridgeshire countryside. He has written regularly for The Critic and tweets as @CapelLofft. This is his first book.
This is a lucid and exciting account of high and low politics in the crucial years of Whig and Tory battles following the Glorious Revolution, when Great Britain was created, and a new world of money, war and empire dawned. George Owers grippingly recounts the culture wars, paranoia, self-seeking and skulduggery that are ""both recognisable and strange"". Recognizable because ""we are all still, in our heart of hearts, either Whig or Tory"", and we are still grappling with their legacy -- Robert Tombs, author of <i>The English and their History</i> A brilliant, absorbing, rollicking read. George Owers captures all the intrigue and idealism, as well as the loucheness and libertinism of the age of Queen Anne - when modern Britain was born and the literary and political worlds were consumed by sulphurous rivalries that still burn today -- Michael Gove This book is a delight. Written with vivacity and veracity it sheds light on the miracle of English party politics -- Maurice Glasman We tend to think of our current age as uniquely fractious but as George Owers shows in his engrossing new book, it is a kindergarten compared to the ""Rage of Party'' this country experienced in the late seventeen and early eighteenth centuries. The story he tells so vividly has it all: political divisions, religious strife, immigration controversies, fake news, arguments over foreign policy, Anglo-Scottish tensions - polarisation all round! -- Brendan Simms, author of <i>Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy, 1453 to the Present</i> A highly readable account of the beginnings of the party system in Britain, with insights that are relevant for understanding of politics in any era. George Owers's vivid recreation of the conflict of Whigs and Tories illuminates what was a crucial period in the rise of Britain as a major European and global power -- David Hayton, editor of <i>The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1690-1715</i> Today's party politics absorbs us. When did British party politics begin and how? George Owers's book provides a compelling analysis, brilliantly interweaving vivid vignettes into a masterly narrative -- Mark Goldie, Emeritus Professor of History, University of Cambridge A delicious and fascinating book for those who love politics in the raw. George Owers details the plots, the intrigue, the ambition, the deception and the corruption from the early years of our two-party system - the Whigs against Tories, plus numerous warring factions. The Rage of Party also involves an extraordinary cast of colourful and eccentric characters - in an era when leaders who failed could still face the gallows! -- Michael Crick George Owers' tremendously entertaining new book is an unabashedly narrative account of the twists and turns of Whig and Tory through a period of immense turmoil . . . It makes for a heady cocktail of policy and personality. Owers' enthusiasm for the period and its characters is palpable * History Today *
