Description
Book Synopsis
The Gordon riots of June 1780 were the most devastating outbreak of urban violence in British history. This book brings together leading scholars from historical and literary studies to provide new perspectives on these momentous events. The essays offer new interpretations of contemporary literary and artistic sources.
Trade Review
'These essays offer historians of the eighteenth-century a valuable re-examination of these events which have long been seen through too narrow a lens. Contemporary Review
Table of Contents
Introduction Ian Haywood and John Seed; Part I. The Political Moment of 1780: 1. The Gordon riots and the politics of war Nicholas Rogers; 2. The 1780 Protestant petitions and the culture of petitioning Mark Knights; 3. 'The fall of Romish Babylon anticipated': plebeian Dissenters and anti-popery in the Gordon riots John Seed; 4. Imperial disruptions: city, nation, and empire in the Gordon riots Dana Rabin; Part II. Representing the Unrepresentable: 5. 'A metropolis in flames and a nation in ruins': the Gordon riots as sublime spectacle Ian Haywood; 6. 'The worse than Negro barbarity of the populace': Ignatius Sancho witnesses the Gordon riots Brycchan Carey; 7. Thomas Holcroft and the Gordon riots: Romantic revisionings Miriam L. Wallace; Part III. The Aftermath: Politics, Social Order and Cultural Memory: 8. Re-negotiating the bloody code: the Gordon riots and the transformation of popular attitudes to the criminal justice system Tim Hitchcock; 9. 'For the safety of the city': the geography and social politics of public execution after the Gordon riots Matthew White; 10. 'Mad misrule': the Gordon riots and conservative memory Susan Matthews; Afterword; 11. George Gordon: a biographical reassessment Dominic Green; Select bibliography; Index.
