Description
Book SynopsisToleration and State Institutions explores the rise of more charitable British policy toward Catholics in Ireland and in Quebec during the latter half of the eighteenth century. Applying a historical institutionalist approach, Karen Stanbridge demonstrates that Catholic relief arose more gradually, and encountered less opposition, than is generally maintained. Her careful analysis shows that the growth of toleration among political élites, and the concerns of administrators wishing to secure the allegiance of Catholic subjects, were only two of many factors leading to the development of policy kinder to Catholics. Toleration and State Institutions sheds new light on the official treatment (and mistreatment) of minorities at home during the height of British expansion abroad, offering a fascinating example of the divisions and rapprochements that characterize the relationship between state and society.
Trade ReviewThis is both a scholarly and original book, which takes a new approach to an important historical question, and makes a significant contribution to our understanding of Anglo-Irish relations in their imperial context. It deserves to be read not only by historians of Ireland and of the eighteenth-century British empire, but by all who are interested in the working of representative institutions and in processes of decision- making in the early modern state. -- David Hayton, Queens College Belfast
Stanbridge has creatively joined an institutional historical sociology with an impressive historical understanding to produce this well-written illumination of how British policies towards Catholic Ireland and Quebec changed in the eighteenth century. -- Ian Steele, University of Western Ontario
This book will be useful for teachers of colonial history who want a handy schema to introduce students to the structure of British political administration. * H-Net: Humanities and Social Science Reviews Online *
Professor Stanbridge has exposed the weaknesses of existing approaches to the understanding of inter-group relations, approaches that focus on the attitudes and interests of contending groups, by illuminating the role of social and political institutions in which contending groups have to operate. She also provides an innovative historical comparative analysis, juxtaposing differences in both time and place, which will be food for thought for Atlantic and Imperial historians, as well as those who specialize in Ireland and Quebec. -- Samuel Clark, University of Western Ontario
Table of ContentsChapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Approach and Historical Cases Chapter 3 The Treaty of Limerick Ratification Bill, 1697 Chapter 4 The Quebec Act, Part I Chapter 5 The Quebec Act, Part II Chapter 6 The Irish Catholic Relief Act, 1778 Chapter 7 Conclusions
