Influence and evaluation Kenneth O. Morgan in The Age of Lloyd George: The Liberal Party and British Politics, 1890–1929 (1971) called it "brilliantly written but basically misleading", and stated that its influence on later writers was "totally disproportionate". Carolyn W. White has argued that after languishing for three decades, [it] became the single most controversial book on prewar England, the linchpin of a major and continuing historiographical debate. All efforts by professional historians to vanquish what Peter Clarke has described as a "brilliant impressionistic book" have failed. Indeed there is scarcely a book or article on the prewar period that does not mention Dangerfield's book, or attempt to sustain or refute its findings- "a sure sign of its importance," notes John Grigg. The British studies journal Albion focused on the book and its author in Winter 1985 (Vol. 17, No. 4). In 1998 the book was chosen as number eighty-two in the Modern Library's list of the 100 Best Nonfiction Books published in the 20th century. Chris Cook, in A Short History of the Liberal Party 1900–1997 (1998), concluded that the book "can be safely left alone. It is a highly impressionistic account and at times highly misleading". From the left, Eric Hobsbawm asserted that it was "wrong on most details, but still the most exciting way to start looking at the nation's history during this period". The book does not take a Marxist perspective, but Paul Foot wrote in the Socialist Review in 1987 that anyone who had not read it "should instantly treat themselves". He argued that "Even after 61 years ... George Dangerfield’s book is supreme. Every page, indeed every sentence, is lifted above the average by his irresistible writing style. The hallmark of this style is that most dangerous of all the weapons in the challenger’s armoury: mockery. The whole book is a mockery of the pretensions of the rulers of the time, most notably the mandarins of Asquith’s Liberal government". From the right, in a speech to the London Academy of Excellence, the Conservative Cabinet minister Michael Gove mentioned it as one of his favourite history books. Peter Stansky in 1985 evaluated the book after 50 years: The Strange Death continues as a major influence on how the period is viewed, and scholars and teachers spend considerable energy in coming to terms with the picture of England, in all its richness and complexity, presented in