Goodrich, Amanda 1957- (Amanda Jane Goodrich)

PERSONAL:

Born June 26, 1957. Education: Royal Holloway, University of London, Ph.D., 2001.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham TW20 0EX, England. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, England, teaching associate in the history department; Open University, London, England, associate lecturer.

WRITINGS:

Debating England's Aristocracy in the 1790s: Pamphlets, Polemics, and Political Ideas, Boydell Press (Rochester, NY), 2005.

Also contributor to journals, including the British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies.

SIDELIGHTS:

London-based writer and educator Amanda Goodrich was born June 26, 1957. She serves on the Royal Holloway faculty at the University of London as a teaching associate, and is also an associate lecturer at the Open University in London. She is the author of Debating England's Aristocracy in the 1790s: Pamphlets, Polemics, and Political Ideas, which was published by Boydell Press in 2005.

Debating England's Aristocracy in the 1790s opens new perspectives on the so-called French Revolution debate that took place in England during the 1790s between supporters of the French revolutionaries and the opposing supporters of the French aristocracy. This book posits that classic texts on the French Revolution, most notably those by Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine, as well as the ensuing pamphlet literature that was widely distributed in Britain, devoted much space and considerable intellectual energy to the characterization and ideological representation of aristocracy. Goodrich challenges the view, traditionally held by historians, that there was one united conservative loyalism put forth in support of the French aristocracy. Instead, she identifies a number of "loyalisms," and explores the development of a commercial loyalism which promoted a new model of society with a simultaneous modern aristocracy and an open elite.

Goodrich reconstructs the pamphlet debate in order to illustrate the complexities of the bitter battle fought between the radical supporters of the revolution and the loyalist supporters of the aristocracy. Nancy LoPatin-Lummis, a contributor to the Historian, explained that "terms like ‘radical’ and ‘loyalist’ changed in the mid-1790s, allowing loyalism to embrace the Whig commercial interests as well as the Tory landowning aristocracy." Goodrich argues that it was the loyalist response to the debate that proved to be a truly innovative literary campaign to win over the hearts and minds of the British people.

Rachel Hammersley, in a review for the Sehepunkte Web site, remarked that "this is an interesting book, which undoubtedly adds a new dimension to our understanding of the French Revolution debate of the 1790s. And the account it provides is, for the most part, a convincing one." In a review in the Journal of European Studies, Jeremy Black concluded: "This useful book invites comparable studies for other periods. Hopefully Goodrich will have the opportunity to supplement her valuable study in order to scrutinize manuscript sources that might provide insights into the impact of the arguments she so profitably discusses."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, December 1, 2006, Tamara L. Hunt, review of Debating England's Aristocracy in the 1790s: Pamphlets, Polemics, and Political Ideas, p. 1595.

English Historical Review, April 1, 2006, John Cannon, review of Debating England's Aristocracy in the 1790s, p. 618.

Historian, March 22, 2007, Nancy LoPatin-Lummis, review of Debating England's Aristocracy in the 1790s, p. 151.

Journal of British Studies, October 1, 2006, James J. Sack, review of Debating England's Aristocracy in the 1790s, p. 911.

Journal of European Studies, Volume 36, number 4, December 1, 2006, Jeremy Black, review of Debating England's Aristocracy in the 1790s, p. 437.

ONLINE

H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online,http://www.h-net.org/ (July 1, 2007), David S. Carr, review of Debating England's Aristocracy in the 1790s.

Royal Holloway, University of London Web site,http://www.rhul.ac.uk/ (August 19, 2008), faculty listing.

Sehepunkte Web site,http://www.sehepunkte.de/ (September 1, 2006), Rachel Hammersley, review of Debating England's Aristocracy in the 1790s.