Description
Book SynopsisThis book combines consideration of more traditional concerns of social history with investigation of the newer items on the agenda of historians. The result is a masterly study, providing the only up-to-date interpretation available for the period.
Trade Review'A book full of information, lucidly presented, with few axes to grind; a text which can be warmly recommended to the students for whom it is primarily intended. It is also a book which their teachers will read with profit.' The Times Literary Supplement 'J A Sharpe's 'Early Modern England' is...[social history] at its best.' The Times Educational Supplement 'A stimulating introduction to the social history of the early-modern period, one that can be recommended enthusiastically to students and the general reader...It catches the excitement of current research and never shirks the more difficult issues.' Social History Society Newsletter
Table of ContentsPrologue - towards the days of shaking. Politics and society, 1550-1653. Part 1 Family, community and nation: population; family life; towns and villages; the national community and the problem of order. Part 2 The social hierarchy and social change: the economy - an overview; the landed orders; non-landed elites; the common people. Part 3 The spiritual and mental world: religion; education and literacy; culture, popular and elite; magic, witchcraft and natural philosophy. Epilogue - strife within stability.
