"But most of all there is that marvellous microcosmos of English social and political life, that extraordinary club, the House of Commons. For centuries it has been the goal of English manhood, and besides those who found seats in it on the strength of a tradition or of a quasi-hereditary right, there were in every House many scores of men, for whom its membership set the crown (and often the coronet) on achievements and success in other walks of life. Generals, admirals, and pro-consuls entered it, business men who had made their fortunes and now aspired to social advancement, Civil Servants, lawyers and political wire-pullers who tried to raise their professional status, etc. The rise of "interests" and classes can be traced through the personnel of the House of Commons, the forms of English gregarious existence can be studied, the social structure of England is reflected in it, the presence or decay of independent political life in boroughs and counties can be watched in their representation."
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Diplomats of the United KingdomAnglicans from the United KingdomHistorians from the United KingdomZionists
Original Language: English
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'The Biography of Ordinary Men', The Nation and Athenauem (14 July 1928), quoted in Lewis Namier, Crossroads of Power: Essays on Eighteenth-Century England (1962), p. 3
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lewis_Namier
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Lewis Namier
Sir Lewis Bernstein Namier (27 June 1888 – 19 August 1960) was a British historian of Polish-Jewish background. His best-known works were The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (1929), England in the Age of the American Revolution (1930) and the History of Parliament series (begun 1940) he edited later in his life with John Brooke.
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