Modern History

Great crowds attended public services and ceremonies following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln on 15 April 1865; this study explores personal as opposed to public responses to the president’s death. Using letters, diaries and other contemporary records of people’s reactions and sentiments rather than memoirs written with hindsight, the book gives a human dimension to this crucial event in American history.

In this study, Weinstein considers the development of London's liberal political culture between the general election of 1832 and the establishment of the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1855. He offers a fresh interpretation of the city's political life, arguing that Whiggery was a potent force, exerting a 'powerful "negative influence" on the construction of early Victorian metropolitan radical identity'.