Description

With a keen eye for the juicy anecdote, Thevoz tells the fascinating and entertaining story of the rise, decline and resurgence of London’s private members’ clubs, from the late-eighteenth century to the present day. In doing so he looks at cultural and political developments beyond the clubs, revealing how while the clubs may have been products of their city and country, they also exerted significant influence on London, Britain and places far beyond.

This is a chronicle, as informative as it is entertaining, of the ups and downs of London clubland, and how it had an impact on parts of the world far from London. It is packed with amusing anecdotes and illustrative examples of the growth of this quirky, unique institution, which grew to spread around the world. London, though, with its four hundred clubs, was always at its heart.

Thevoz reveals how everything we might have thought we knew about these clubs is wrong. They may have started out as white, male, aristocratic watering holes – but that’s only part of the story. All sections of society built their own clubs and lived their lives there: highbrow and lowbrow; women and men; working-class, middle-class and upper-class; international and British. The club has been central to a distinctively British form of leisure over more than three centuries.

Behind Closed Doors is a distillation of a decade of research and writing on London clubs, based on exclusive behind-the-scenes access to archives and proceedings, as well as a love of gossip and scandal.

Publisher Review

Praise for Club Government: A fascinating forensic study of the period's networks of power. -- Ian Hislop, Editor, Private Eye Praise for Club Government: We are in Seth Thevoz's debt for this splendid book, at once a scholarly work and an insider's account. -- Professor Eugenio Biagini, Cambridge University Praise for Club Government: This definitive study shows how smart London clubs played a crucial role in shaping mid-Victorian politics . . . Presenting a wealth of new evidence, he has produced a tour de force of scholarship. -- Dr Piers Brendon, former Keeper of the Churchill Archives and author of The Decline and Fall of the British Empire Praise for Club Government: Skilful presentation as well as uniquely well-informed content. -- Sir Peter Newsam, former Director of the Institute of Education, London University Praise for Club Government: Magisterial. -- Professor Sunny Singh, novelist Praise for Club Government: Seth Thevoz has undertaken the most comprehensive and rational analysis of the part clubs played and how they were enabled to do so. He has demystified some of the aura that Trollope and Disraeli tried to create around clubland. * Journal of Liberal History * Praise for Club Government: Dr Thevoz's scholarly and readable book is an outstanding and important contribution to our understanding of politics in nineteenth-century Britain. * Sherlock Holmes Journal * Praise for Club Government: Compelling and detailed. -- David Palfreyman, author of London's Pall Mall Clubs Praise for Club Government: Excellent . . . a carefully sourced study . . . It's an easy and educative read from someone who not only researches (and then writes) well, but whose understanding of what drives politicians to do what they do is weaved throughout the book. * Liberator *