Historiography of the British Empire the first British Empire" (2008); Piers Brendon, "The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781–1997" (2008), and Phillip J. Smith, "The Rise And Fall Of The British Empire: Mercantilism, Diplomacy and the Colonies" (2015). There were also large-scale popular histories, such as those by Winston Churchill, "A History of the English-Speaking Peoples" (4 vol. 1956–58) and Arthur Bryant, "The History of Britain and the British Peoples" (3 vols. 1984–90). Obviously from their titles a number of writers have been inspired by the famous "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" (6 vols 1776–1781) by Edward
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom because of the diminishing role of the Cabinet Ministers and because of centralisation of the party machine and the bureaucracy. Richard Crossman also alluded to the presidentialisation of British politics in the "Introduction" to the 1963 version of Walter Bagehot’s "The English Constitution". Crossman mentions the World War II, and its immediate aftermath as a water-shed moment for Britain that led to immense accumulation of power in the hands of the British Prime Minister These powers, according to Crossman, are so immense that their study require the use of presidential parallels. The thesis has been most popularised by Michael Foley,