The Making of a Ruling Class: The Glamorgan Gentry 1640–1790

by Philip Jenkins

• ISBN13: 9780521521949
• ISBN10: 0521521947
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-08-22
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This study provides an extensive survey of the economic activities of the gentry, their role as entrepreneurs and as popularisers of the metropolitan culture of Georgian London. It describes how during the eighteenth century, local elites from remote corners of Britain were amalgamated into one new ruling class, a body distinguished by common attitudes, social outlook, living standards and educational patterns. The author provides a synthesis of social, economic and political changes in the years prior to industrialisation. Political changes are studied in detail, and the changing role of political parties and ideologies is examined. Then, after a comprehensive study of the activities and attitudes of the gentry, the book concludes by attempting to explain precisely why Britain should have led the world in the twin processes of industrialisation and modernisation.

Table of Contents

List of maps and tables

Acknowledgments

List of abbreviations

General introduction

Part I. Social and Economic Structure: Introduction

1. Land and people

2. The gentry

3. Economic development

Conclusion to Part I

Part II. Local and National Politics: Introduction

4. Law and order

5. Political history 1640-1688: the heroic age

6. Political history 1688-1790: the new order

Conclusion to Part II

Part III. Society and Culture: Introduction

7. The idea of a gentleman

8. Education and culture

9. The spread of metropolitan standards

Conclusion to Part III: 'conspicuous antiquity'

Aftermath: towards the Victorian world

Conclusion: from Civil War to Industrial Revolution

Appendices

Notes

Index.