Eighteenth-Century English Society by Douglas Hay

Eighteenth-Century English Society by Douglas Hay

The period from 1688-1820 was marked throughout with riots and rebellions, seditions and strikes. Yet it began with the welcoming of Prince William of Orange, whose coronation was widely celebrated as a move towards a more democratic state. Parliament and the courts were set to become a central feature of political life. But in 1819, fifteen men, women, and children were killed and over 400 injured when the yeomanry, directed by the magistracy, attacked the mass meeting for parliamentary reform at St Peter's Field, Manchester. The long eighteenth century was characterized by the gradual erosion of consensual politics: the transfer from a cross-class consensus based on the Whig/Tory divide to divisions based instead on the notion that the state privileged the interests of certain social groups over others. This book draws together the implications of recent work on demography, labour, and law to assess their importance for defining those moments and places where class interests met and conflicted. By focusing on the experiences of the eighty percent of the population who made up England's `lower orders', Douglas Hay and Nicholas Rogers accord new significance to food shortages, changes in poor relief, use of the criminal law, and the shifts in social power caused by industrialization which would bring about the birth of working-class radicalism.

This text worked well for students who had little prior knowledge of the subjectIt combines factual information and vivid description in a way that is useful and holds students' interest. The authors' strongly stated interpretation of power relations in 18th-century English society stimulated fruitful discussion in the classroom. * Marilyn Morris, University of North Texas *

Douglas Hay and Nicholas Rogers are both Professors of History at York University, Ontario.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780192891945
ISBN 10	0192891944
Title	Eighteenth-Century English Society
Author	Douglas Hay
Series	Opus
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Oxford University Press
Year published	1997-05-08
Number of pages	272
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.