Trust and Distrust by Mark Knights
Trust and Distrust offers the first overview of Britain's history of corruption in office in the pre-modern era, 1600-1850, and as such will appeal not only to historians, but also to political and social scientists. Mark Knights paints a picture of the interaction of the domestic and imperial stories of corruption in office, showing how these stories were intertwined and related. Linking corruption in office to the domestic and imperial state has not been attempted before, and Knights does this by drawing on extensive interdisciplinary sources relating to the East India Company as well as other colonial officials in the Atlantic World and elsewhere in Britain's emerging empire. Both 'corruption' and 'office' were concepts that were in evolution during the period 1600-1850 and underwent very significant but protracted change which this study charts and seeks to explain. The book makes innovative use of the concept of trust, which helped to shape office in ways that underlined principles of selflessness, disinterestedness, integrity, and accountability in officials.
No historian of this long period can afford to ignore the book and it will certainly appeal to a large readership not only among historians of Britain and its empire but among political scientists more generally* Paul Slack, Emeritus Professor of Early Modern Social History, Linacre College, University of Oxford *
The scholarship on display here is remarkable ... [a] superb study * Ian Cawood, Times Literary Supplement *
Knights's achievement is to set the attack on 'Old Corruption' in a much longer timeframe and a more interesting framework than the conventional view * Prof Jonathan Parry (Cambridge), London Review of Books 15 Jan 2022 *
In Trust & Distrust, Knights has produced a work of significant importance and breadth, one which deserves to be read by historians and non-historians alike with an interest in the politics and culture of early modern Britain and its empire. * Ben Gilding, Culture and Social History *
Trust & Distrust is a magisterial piece of scholarship ... It will be the defining scholarly embarkation point for the study of corruption and anticorruption in early modern England and its empire for years to come. * Robert Bucholz, The American Historical Review *
... a remarkable scholarly achievement, and one that is especially impressive for its scope ... * Paul Kosmetatos, Journal for Eighteenth Century Studies *
The scholarship on display here is remarkable ... [a] superb study * Ian Cawood, Times Literary Supplement *
Knights's achievement is to set the attack on 'Old Corruption' in a much longer timeframe and a more interesting framework than the conventional view * Prof Jonathan Parry (Cambridge), London Review of Books 15 Jan 2022 *
In Trust & Distrust, Knights has produced a work of significant importance and breadth, one which deserves to be read by historians and non-historians alike with an interest in the politics and culture of early modern Britain and its empire. * Ben Gilding, Culture and Social History *
Trust & Distrust is a magisterial piece of scholarship ... It will be the defining scholarly embarkation point for the study of corruption and anticorruption in early modern England and its empire for years to come. * Robert Bucholz, The American Historical Review *
... a remarkable scholarly achievement, and one that is especially impressive for its scope ... * Paul Kosmetatos, Journal for Eighteenth Century Studies *
Mark Knights has published extensively on early modern Britain with a particular focus on its political culture. His first book was Politics and Opinion in Crisis, 1678-1681 (1994), and he then worked for the History of Parliament on its 1690-1715 volumes. He moved to the University of Warwick in 2007 and has directed its Early Modern and Eighteenth Century Centre. The book about to be published won two awards, the first 2014-16 an AHRC Leadership Fellowship and in 2020 a Leverhulme Fellowship.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780198796244 |
| ISBN 10 | 0198796242 |
| Title | Trust and Distrust |
| Author | Mark Knights |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
| Year published | 2021-12-09 |
| Number of pages | 506 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |