This absorbing volume consists of the editors' introduction followed by thirteen research-based essays. Attention is repeatedly drawn to bonds between Britain and America, and their meaning and consequences as they struck contemporaries. The focus is less on aversion and skepticism than on affinity and respect. To the editors, America was “a means for British commentators to think through pressing domestic political and cultural problems by looking to a parallel presence: a secessionist fragment of the domestic state; a living alternative modernity” (2). So America was different, but it also remained thoroughly British. If the Britishness is overstated on occasion, this book nevertheless explores important aspects of Anglo-American interaction, and the essays complement each other very well.

Democracy—and its political and social causes and effects—fascinated British observers, but there was no single picture of American democracy. There were different versions, which allows the contributors to this volume to combine broad views with narrower specialisms. Most of the commentators, ideas, events, and topics have been studied before; but this collection is refreshing, wide ranging, and draws to some extent, and to good effect, on interdisciplinary insights. The contributors teach and publish in the fields of history, literature, and politics.

The useful introduction discusses political, racial, philosophical, literary, and other matters of interest, including the work of Paul Giles on constructions of America—a reminder of how an observer could impose his or her own stamp upon what was observed. The essays are arranged chronologically. Mark Philp's essay, on the question of whether America would become more or less like Britain, highlights the verdict of Thomas Paine. Jon Mee elucidates the suspicion that equality in the early Republic might not mean happiness, and he relates this to Enlightenment thought about morality and civilization (and to Mary Wollstonecraft's claim that democracy should be for women no less than for men). Ella Dzelzainis discusses the gap between ideal and real America and the possibility of regression rather than progress, an issue that so vexed Charles Dickens. Lucy Hartley examines the writing of J. S. Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville, and shows how their conclusions about America affected the political theory of the age, not least on the subject of republican virtue. Robert Saunders argues that American-style democracy was not the goal of British reformers, who wished to enlarge the electorate without upsetting the established order. The 1867 Reform Act was “an anti-democratic measure designed to protect Britain from Americanization” (91). Simon Morgan addresses the belief of many in Britain that democracy must inevitably prompt economic liberalization. Tension increased as free traders were exasperated by US protectionism, and quarrels arose about the economic interests of each country and indeed of the wider, commercially expanding world. Propaganda stressed the disadvantages of protection, but there was a problem: although arguments could be framed “in such a way as to deflect criticisms of American democracy,” debate about tariffs “helped to familiarize the British public with the notion of a fragile Union, riddled with sectionalism and divided not only by slavery but also by attitudes toward free trade” (93). Anthony Howe discusses Richard Cobden's praise for America and suggests that it pointed toward the late Victorian sense of Anglo-American togetherness.

Ethnicity and race feature in Richard Huzzey's essay, which explores “the conjunction of African-American suffering and white male suffrage” (122). The wish to emphasize connections between Britain and America, rather than divergence, led some to excuse “Anglo-Saxon” planters in the South for slavery and to attach the blame to Irish voting blocs in the North. For others, the main lesson was that democracy should not be tried in Britain, because “the irresponsible poor—whether through racial degeneracy or personal inadequacies—would corrupt the body politic” (126). Racist assumptions were pervasive. They influenced thinking about political rights in Britain's colonies as well as in the United States.

America's continuing importance as an exemplar and inspiration to British radicals is demonstrated by Adam Smith, who uses G. W. M Reynolds as an illustration. Edmund Rogers shows how ideas about America's economic development affected British Liberalism. Access to land was seen as a safety valve, a proof of good government, and a necessity for the successful operation of American democracy. High tariffs contradicted the wisdom of free trade, but this was no reflection on the US system of government because protective policies were also pursued by other countries under other forms of government. The enduring strength of the positive view of American democracy is explored by Laurel Brake, who focuses on the journalism of W. T. Stead. Ruth Livesey discusses Henry James's impression that America was more clearly going its own way by the early twentieth century and that the parallels with Britain were disappearing. Duncan Bell deals with a different impression, the concept of the Anglo-world—Britain and the United States as natural allies, with a shared identity, superior and dominant, and destined to determine humanity's future path.

The essays vary in quality. Some are substantially new, while others offer a repetition of their authors' earlier work. Some are more concerned with exploring the nature of democracy than others. Taken as a whole, though, this volume grapples creditably with the complexity of transatlantic political and cultural exchanges, and adds significantly to our understanding of the societies and governmental systems of Britain and America, and of British opinion about the United States. As mentioned above, there are a few too many exaggerations. “British democracy,” the editors tell us, “was formulated within, and to some extent constrained by, an idea of America” (6). Really? Plenty of British reformers rejected the notion that America had much to teach them about representative organs and personal liberty, and even admirers of America denied that it offered the best model for British reform. It bears repeating: there was no single, agreed-upon interpretation of America to which all British commentators adhered. Most of the contributors to this volume frame their arguments accordingly. Claims about the preponderance of pro-America preferences in some parts of the book are countered by a more balanced assessment in others.

In publishing this latest volume in a series of transatlantic studies, Ashgate is to be commended. It contains excellent scholarship. But for such an expensive book, the copyediting ought to have been better. There are numerous small errors and inconsistencies.