A B S T R A C T. The study of British attitudes to the French Revolution continues to attract substantial scholarly attention. In recent years, this has resulted not only in the excavation of a substantial volume of new detail, but also in increasing attention being paid to the political experiences of members of the middling and lower orders during the revolutionary and Napoleonic decades. While historians have been interested in radicals and reformers from these social strata since the publication of E. P. Thompson's The making of the English working class in 1963, it is only more recently that their loyalist and less partisan counterparts have been examined by scholars to the same extent. This article begins by summarizing the recent publication of large collections of primary sources and of major biographies in this area. It then discusses recent historiographical advances and debates in the following areas : the British debate over the French Revolution ; the political participation of members of the middle and working classes in patriotic and loyalist activities ; the culture of popular politics ; and the question of national identity.While a great deal of substantial and important work was published on British responses to the revolution in France during the 1970s and 1980s, it is not surprising that such a rich field of study has continued to attract scholars over the past fifteen years or so, mining an enormous volume of new detail as well as challenging previous wisdom and consensus. A substantial amount of attention has been paid to the political experiences of members of the middling and lower orders during the revolutionary and Napoleonic decades. How did they participate in loyalist and patriotic activities, as well as in radical and pacifist demonstrations ? Why did they display loyalty and patriotism? To what extent could the governing elite invite and welcome their participation in its defence ? Was there ever a danger that their political opponents, the adherents of radical politics, might have destabilized the state sufficiently to overthrow the government ? How did the measures taken by government to guard against such an enormity affect the ordinary British subject? What can we know about the political culture of middling and lower order loyalists and radicals ? How far did the experience of war against revolutionary and Napoleonic France draw