Paddy Ashdown, Shirley Williams and a new book make me childishly excited

With all due deference to the many other wonderful events coming up at the Liberal Democrat party conference, there is one that has me childishly excited.

Monday evening, Paddy Ashdown and Shirley Williams will be speaking at the Liberal Democrat History Group fringe meeting where we launch the new history of British liberalism, Peace, Reform and Liberation: A history of liberal politics in Britain 1679-2011.

The book has been the History Group’s intended next book for quite a while, so simply seeing it out and in print (thanks to the hard work of Duncan Brack and Robert Ingham in particular) would be exciting enough. But Paddy and Shirley speaking at the launch…

Now I will just go and fret that the first chapter, starting in 1679, which I’ve co-authored, lives up in the cold light of day to the quality of the rest of the book…

Hope you can come to the fringe. Copies will be on sale at the meeting and you will also be able to order the book from Amazon.

UPDATE: You can read a report of the meeting launching Peace, Reform and Liberation here.