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A Land of Liberty?
The Glorious Revolution of 1688-9 was a decisive moment in England's history; an invading Dutch army forced James II to flee to France, and his son-in-law and daughter, William and Mary, were crowned as joint sovereigns. The wider consequences were no less startling: bloody war in Ireland, Union with Scotland, Jacobite intrigue, deep involvement in two major European wars, Britain's emergence as a great power, a 'financial revolution', greater religious toleration, a riven Church, and a startling growth of parliamentary government. Such changes were only part of the transformation of English society at the time. An enriching torrent of new ideas from the likes of Newton, Defoe, and Addison, spread through newspapers, periodicals, and coffee-houses, provided new views and values that some embraced and others loathed. England's horizons were also growing, especially in the Caribbean and American colonies. For many, however, the benefits were uncertain: the slave trade flourished, inequality widened, and the poor and 'disorderly' were increasingly subject to strictures and statutes. If it was an age of prospects it was also one of anxieties.
Britain's Political Economies
The Glorious Revolution of 1688–9 transformed the role of parliament in Britain and its empire. Large numbers of statutes resulted, with most concerning economic activity. Julian Hoppit here provides the first comprehensive account of these acts, revealing how government affected economic life in this critical period prior to the Industrial Revolution, and how economic interests across Britain used legislative authority for their own benefit. Through a series of case studies, he shows how ideas, interests, and information influenced statutory action in practice. Existing frameworks such as 'mercantilism' and the 'fiscal-military state' fail to capture the full richness and structural limitations of how political power influenced Britain's precocious economic development in the period. Instead, finely grained statutory action was the norm, guided more by present needs than any grand plan, with regulatory ambitions constrained by administrative limitations, and some parts of Britain benefiting much more than others.
The Dreadful Monster and its Poor Relations
'An invaluable primer to some of the underlying tensions behind contemporary political debate' Financial Times It has always been an important part of British self-image to see the United Kingdom as an ancient, organic and sensibly managed place, in striking contrast to the convulsions of other European countries. Yet, as Julian Hoppit makes clear in this fascinating and surprising book, beneath the complacent surface the United Kingdom has in fact been in a constant, often very tense argument with itself about how it should be run and, most significantly, who should pay for what. The book takes its argument from an eighteenth century cartoon which shows the central state as the 'Dreadful Monster', gorging itself at the dinner table on all the taxes it can grab. Meanwhile the 'Poor Relations' - Scotland, Wales and Ireland, both poor because of tax but also poor in the sense of needing special treatment - are viewed in London as an endless 'drain on the state'. With drastically different levels of prosperity, population, industry, agriculture and accessibility between the United Kingdom's different nations, what is a fair basis for paying for the state?
Parliaments, nations and identities in Britain and Ireland, 1660–1850
The abolition of the Scottish and Irish Parliaments in 1707 and 1800 created a United Kingdom centred upon the Westminster legislature. This text discusses what this meant for the four nations involved, and how conceptions of English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh identities were affected.
Making the British empire, 1660–1800
This collection offers a timely reappraisal of the origins and nature of the first British empire, in response to the ‘cultural turn’ in historical scholarship and the ‘new imperial history’. It addresses topics that have been neglected in recent literature, providing a series of political and institutional perspective; at the same time it recognises the importance of developments across the empire, not least in terms of how they affected imperial ‘policy’ and its implementation. It analyses a range of contemporary debates and ideas – political and intellectual as well as religious and administrative – relating to political economy, legal geography and sovereignty, as well as the messy realities of the imperial project, including the costs and losses of empire, collectively and individually.
The Industrial Revolution
The British Industrial Revolution has long been seen as the spark for modern, global industrialization and sustained economic growth. Indeed the origins of economic history, as a discipline, lie in 19th-century European and North American attempts to understand the foundation of this process. In this book, William J. Ashworth questions some of the orthodoxies concerning the history of the industrial revolution and offers a deep and detailed reassessment of the subject that focuses on the State and its role in the development of key British manufactures. In particular, he explores the role of State regulation and protectionism in nurturing Britain's negligible early manufacturing base. Taking...
Nehemiah Grew and England's Economic Development
This title publishes for the first time a little-known work on improving England's economy, written around 1706 and presented to Queen Anne on the eve of the parliamentary Union of England and Scotland. As such it contributed to a growing body of writing about managing the economy in Britain.
Continuity, Chance and Change
The Industrial Revolution brought into being a distinct world, a world of greater affluence, longevity and mobility, an urban rather than a rural world. But the great surge of economic growth was balanced against severe constraints on the opportunities for expansion, revealing an intriguing paradox. This book, published to considerable critical acclaim, explores the paradox and attempts to provide a distinct model' of the changes that comprised the industrial revolution.
Energy and the English Industrial Revolution
Retrospective: 9.
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society: Volume 12
Publishes general papers and a section on English politeness: conduct, social rank and moral virtue.
