The many lives of corruption

Book excerpt: How has corruption shaped – and undermined – the history of public life in modern Britain? This collection begins the task of piecing together this history over the past two and a half centuries, from the first assaults on Old Corruption and aristocratic privilege during the late eighteenth century through to the corruption scandals that blighted the worlds of Westminster and municipal government during the twentieth century. It offers the first account that pays equal attention to the successes and limitations of anticorruption reforms and the shifting meanings of ‘corruption’. It does so across a range of different sites – electoral, political and administrative, domestic and colonial – presenting new research on neglected areas of reform, while revisiting well known scandals and corrupt practices.