British Society 1680–1880: Dynamism, Containment and Change

by Richard Price

• ISBN13: 9780521651721
• ISBN10: 0521651727
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-10-13
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Richard Price here offers a sweeping interpretation of modern British history. He challenges the dominant assumption that the nineteenth century marked the beginning of modern Britain. British Society argues on the contrary that nineteenth-century British society was the extension of an earlier era whose main themes first appeared in the late seventeenth century and which continued to shape the social, economic and political history of the country until the end of the nineteenth century. This book casts light on the main themes of economic, political and social history, and offers alternative interpretations on questions and issues that are central to the history of modern Britain. It follows in the great tradition of works such as Briggs's Age of Improvement, and Perkin's Origins of Modern English Society, and will be of enormous interest to all students and scholars of the period.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Acknowledgments	x
Introduction: beginnings, periods and problems	1	(16)
The economy of manufacture	17	(35)
A universal merchant to the world: the political economy of commerce and finance	52	(36)
The ambiguities of free trade	88	(35)
The reach of the state: taxation	123	(32)
The age of localism	155	(37)
The public, the private and the state: civil society 1680--1880	192	(42)
Exclusion and inclusion: the political consequences of 1688	234	(30)
Exclusion and inclusion: defending the politics of finality 1832--1885	264	(28)
The stabilities and instabilities of elite authority: social relations c.1688--c.1880	292	(44)
Afterword	336	(7)
Index	343