The Eighteenth-Century Town: A Reader in English Urban History 1688-1820 (Readers In English Urban History)

The aim of this reader - one of a set of four volumes on urban history covering the late 12th to early 20th centuries - is to gather together in an accessible form a number of key contributions to the study of the 18th century town. Topics covered include agricultural change and social geography. The eighteenth century represents a critical period in the transition of the English urban history, as the town of the early modern era involved into that of the industrial revolution; and since Britain was the 'first industrial nation', this transformation is of more-than-national significance for all those interested in the histroy of towns. This book gathers together in one volume some of the most interesting and important articles that have appeared in research journals to provide a rich variety of perspectives on urban evelopment in the period Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Preface Acknowledgements 1.Introduction 2. Urban growth and agricultural change: England and the Continent in the early modern period 3. Country, county and town: patterns of regional evolution in England 4. Urban improvement and the English economy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 5. The English urban renaissance: the development of provincial urban culturec.1680–c.1760 6. The London 'mob' in the early eighteenth century 7.Bath: ideology and utopia 1700–1760 8. Science, provincial culture and public opinion in Enlightenment England 9. Money, land and lineage: the big bourgeoisie of Hanoverian London 10. Birmingham and the West Midlands1760–1793: politics and regional identity in the English provinces in the later eighteenth century 11. Social class and social geography: the middle classes in London at the end of the eighteenth century 12. Voluntary societies and British urban élites1780–1850: an analysis Select reading list Index