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The Politics of the Excluded, c. 1500-1850

  • Textbook
  • © 2001
  • Latest edition

Overview

Editors:
  1. Tim Harris

    1. Brown University, USA

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  • A collection of new essays from leading scholars from both the UK and the USA
    Challenges the way we traditionally think about politics outofdoors and the importance of popular politics and opinion in the early modern period
    Revises existing views about the emergence of the public sphere, and dates it much earlier than we would perhaps think

Part of the book series: Themes in Focus (TIF)

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Table of contents (9 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-ix
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  2. Introduction

    • Tim Harris
    Pages 1-29

  3. Rumours and Popular Politics in the Reign of Henry VIII

    • Ethan H. Shagan
    Pages 30-66

  4. ‘Poore Men Woll Speke One Daye’: Plebeian Languages of Deference and Defiance in England, c.1520–1640

    • Andy Wood
    Pages 67-98

  5. Libels in Action: Ritual, Subversion and the English Literary Underground, 1603–42

    • Alastair Bellany
    Pages 99-124

  6. The Political Culture of the Middling Sort in English Rural Communities, c.1550–1700

    • Steve Hindle
    Pages 125-152

  7. The Unacknowledged Republic: Officeholding in Early Modern England

    • Mark Goldie
    Pages 153-194

  8. ‘Venerating the Honesty of a Tinker’: The King’s Friends and the Battle for the Allegiance of the Common People in Restoration England

    • Tim Harris
    Pages 195-232

  9. Crowds and Political Festival in Georgian England

    • Nicholas Rogers
    Pages 233-264

  10. Domesticity is in the Streets: Eliza Fenning, Public Opinion and the Politics of Private Life

    • Patty Seleski
    Pages 265-290

  11. Back Matter

    Pages 291-295
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Keywords

About this book

This collection of essays seeks to shed light on the politics of those people who are normally thought of as being excluded from the political nation in early modern England. If by political nation we mean those who sat in parliament, the governors of counties and towns, and the enfranchised classes in the constituencies, then the 'excluded' would be those who were neither actively involved in the process of governing nor had any say in choosing those who would rule over them - the bulk of the population at this time. Yet this volume shows that these people were not, in fact, excluded from politics. Not only did the masses possess political opinions which they were capable of articulating in a public forum, but they were alos often active participants in the political process themselves and taken seriously in that capacity by the governmental elite.

The various essays deal with topics as wide-ranging as riots, rumours, libels, seditious words, public opinion, the structures of local government, and the gendered dimensions of popular political participation, and cover the period from the eve of the Reformation to the Industrial Revolution. They challenge many existing assumptions concerning the nature and significance of public opinion and politics out-of-doors in the early modern period and show us that the people mattered in politics, and thus why we, as historians, cannot afford to ignore them. Politics was more participatory, in this undemocratic age, than one might have thought. The contributors to this volume show that there was a lively and engaged public sphere throughout this period, from Tudor times to the Georgian era.

Editors and Affiliations

  • Brown University, USA

    Tim Harris

About the editor

TIM HARRIS is Professor of History at Brown University.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: The Politics of the Excluded, c. 1500-1850

  • Editors: Tim Harris

  • Series Title: Themes in Focus

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4039-4030-8

  • Publisher: Red Globe Press London

  • eBook Packages: Palgrave History Collection, History (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2001

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: X, 296

  • Additional Information: Previously published under the imprint Palgrave

  • Topics: History of Britain and Ireland

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