What Does John Roberts's Harvard History Thesis Tell Us About
Him?  Ms. DeLucia is an undergraduate at Harvard.  Direct
Textbooks Textbook resource center  When Supreme Court nominee
John Roberts wrote his senior history thesis at Harvard in 1976,
he revisited the Edwardian Liberal revival of early twentieth-
century British politics. His “Old and New Liberalism: The
British Liberal Party’s Approach to the Social Problem,
1906-1914,” submitted "in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honors,"
asks two central questions: First, did the Liberals “confront or
neglect” issues concerning the working class—the so-called
“social problem?” (p.163). Second, what were the implications of
the Liberal approach to reform for the viability of the party on
the brink of World War I? (The Liberal Party was one of two
major political parties in Great Britain from 1832 to 1931. Its
rather sudden collapse has sparked generations of debate, many
attributing its downfall to an alleged refu