Description
Book SynopsisThis book examines the activities of William Blundell, a seventeenth-century Catholic gentleman, and using the approaches of the history of reading provides a detailed analysis of his mindset. The findings of the study challenge a historical determinism which removes Catholics from the mainstream of early-modern society.
Trade Review'a gripping, sensitive, and insightful account of its subject, which manages at once to enhance and to challenge many ideas found within the existing canon of “recusant history".'
Gabriel Glickman, Journal of British Studies, Vol. 51 No. 4
'Reading and Politics shines a light on a significant and under-used source, and it may be hoped that it will point the way for social and cultural historians to exploit the potential of the Blundell papers.'
Lucy Underwood, The Catholic Historical Review, vol. 99 (2)
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Table of ContentsAcknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction
Part I:
1. William Blundell’s family and friends
2. William Blundell and the wider world
Part II:
3. Reading and the construction of commonplaces
4. Reading the confessional divide in early modern England
5. A Catholic approach to the world
Conclusion
Appendix: Map of Little Crosby and surrounding area
Bibliography
Index
