Antiquaries by Rosemary Sweet
Eighteenth-century Britain saw an explosion of interest in its own past, a past now expanded to include more than classical history and high politics. Antiquaries, men interested in all aspects of the past, added a distinctive new dimesnion to literature in Georgian Britain in their attempts to reconstruct and recover the past. Corresponding and publishing in an extended network, antiquaries worked at preserving and investigating records and physical remains in England, Scotland and Ireland. In doing so they laid solid foundations for all future study in British prehistory, archaeology and numismatics, and for local and national history as a while. Naturally, they saw the past partly in their own image. While many antiquaries were better at fieldwork and recording than at synthesis, most were neither crabbed eccentrics nor dilettanti. At their best, as in the works of Richard Gough or William Stukeley, antiquaries set new standards of accuracy and perception in fields ranging from the study of ancient Britons to that of medieval architecture. Antiquaries is the definitive account of a great historical enterprise.
"this informative and ravishingly produced book" The Sunday Times; "This fascinating and richly documented study" The Sunday Telegraph; "Antiquaries laid the foundations for the notion of national heritageThat in itself is enough to guarantee the importance of this book" The Times; "this book is the most important contribution to scholarship in this area in the last two decades" The Literary Review; "In this thorough, magnificently-written study, Rosemary Sweet shows how the origins of the popular fascination with our national past lie with an often-overlooked, frequently eccentric 18th-century group know as 'antiquaries'." The Independent;
Rosemary Sweet is Lecturer in History at the University of Leicester
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781852853099 |
| ISBN 10 | 1852853093 |
| Title | Antiquaries |
| Author | Rosemary Sweet |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing PLC |
| Year published | 2004-02-01 |
| Number of pages | 490 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |