By focusing on the notion of the “public,” this book takes a fruitful look at the relationship between masculinity and politics in modern Britain to ascertain how each has influenced the other. In providing various ways into this tangled conundrum, Public Men offers new insights into masculinity but, more interesting, tangles with the notion of separate spheres. In many ways the concept of separate spheres has come to dominate our understanding of gendered relationships and experiences. Although private femininity has been problematized, public masculinity has often been seen as a given. As Matthew McCormack suggests, in the political realm the importance of gender, whether performed, as an identity, or as the basis of government, has received scant attention. Through the lens of masculinity, Public Men captures another and important dimension to political history.

The strength of this book lies in its ability to consider politics and masculinity from a variety of perspectives that engage with gender through the minutiae of case studies. Many of these studies support continuity over dramatic change. In Shino Konishi's consideration of Arthur Phillips's relationship between aboriginals and convicts in Port Jackson, she suggests that patriarchal notions of governance remained a central force throughout the rise of liberalism. Such connections are alluring and would, with more teasing, prove fruitful in uncovering how traditional notions of patriarchal duty clashed with ideas of consent in liberal politics. In short, was patriarchy reworked for a modern era? This is a recurring question. If there was continuity in the notion of the public man, how and why was it appropriated or reworked as a political tool? Catriona Kennedy has shown that this was certainly the case for chivalry, which became appropriated through various political lenses.

One of the tantalizing aspects of this book is the way in which politics and identity are not necessarily seen as separate areas of study, but rather seen as inextricably intertwined. There is much more to say on this topic, but by looking at Irish nationalism and chivalry, Kennedy supports this dynamic when considering the relational importance of masculinity, especially between genders. While this is no doubt important, Francis Dodsworth's account of the rise of policing indicates that relational intermale studies provide exciting insights into masculinity and politics. Again, the importance of evolution over dramatic change is emphasized when the lower orders replaced gentlemen as officers of the law. Here preexisting notions of governance were expressed through masculine ideals and were embodied in specially chosen men from the lower orders who added an impressive physicality to their ability to support a continuing political order. What is interesting here is why this form of public governance was increasingly abandoned by the gentry and given up to the lower orders, who added the weight of their bodies to their ability to police. Of course these men were also subject to control, but it is little wonder that the new police would become so contentious in the years to come.

Dodsworth signals the importance of the male body, which is a continuing, if undertheorized, theme in this book. Ruth Clayton Windscheffel's consideration of the various representations of William Gladstone indicates that the ideal “public man” was a complex mix of intellect and physicality that was not necessarily rigid, but that could be manipulated by the individual to create a strong public persona. Kit Good also attests to the importance of a bodily dimension in his study of electioneering campaigns. He indicates that ideal types were another important component of public masculinity. Electioneers used “types” such as the businessman, the youth idol, the man of the people, and the military background to persuade their audience. Performance of these ideals could also take on a regional twist, as Matthew Roberts has shown. Roberts explains how W. L. Jackson, a conservative MP for Leeds in the nineteenth century, was seen as vulgar in London but was applauded in Leeds for being able to embody the ideal Yorkshire man. The connections between regionality and masculinity certainly warrants further investigation, but such stereotyping needs to be explored carefully. Once again continuity seems to hold sway, as Good suggests that campaign attitudes altered little in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; neither, it seems, did attitudes toward campaign members. Lucy Robinson's consideration of Peter Tatchell's Bermondsey By-election experience in the 1980s indicates, as she puts it, the continuity “of ‘real men’s’ politics” that spanned political parties (166). Here Tatchell's homosexuality became a point of personal attack from his leftist colleagues.

Public Men certainly indicates the fruitfulness of combining the history of politics and masculinity. Such work shows that while many seeming continuities existed in the notion of the “public man,” we need to focus on changing emphases. While McCormack and Roberts indicate that we can see shifts on the onus of various masculine public virtues, from independence and character to personality, more can be teased out. The corporeal dimension of the public man continually springs up and warrants further debate, as does the regional complexity of the public man. Also, debate concerning the notion of hegemonic masculinity, surely a central theme here, lacked bite. Although McCormack shows that these men certainly moved between public and private spaces, muddying the notion of this seemingly dominant form of gendered control, more could be said about the relationship between masculinities and hegemony. Did a form of political masculinity exist, or was it part of a pervasive sense of a gendered self? are questions that need further investigation. So too does the question of the emphasis of masculine political virtue, where situational factors seem to be as important as chronology. That said, Public Man provides a solid introduction to what will be an ongoing debate.