Product Description: Imperial Island: A History of Britain and its Empire, 1660-1837 is a comprehensive account of Great Britain's imperial path from the Stuart Restoration of 1660 to its emergence as a dominant global superpower. Suitable for students with no prior knowledge of British history Organized to help students and instructors: comprises 21 thematic chapters set within a clear, chronological framework Includes over 30 illustrations and maps to help orient the reader Addresses the new generation of American and British students that are interested in global, environmental, and cultural history...read more

Product Description: On a winter night in 1743, a local magistrate was stabbed to death in the churchyard of Rye by an angry butcher. Why did this gruesome crime happen? What does it reveal about the political, economic, and cultural patterns that existed in this small English port town?To answer these questions, this fascinating book takes us back to the mid-sixteenth century, when religious and social tensions began to fragment the quiet town of Rye and led to witch hunts, riots, and violent political confrontations...read more

Product Description: In the sixteenth century, the kings of Europe were like gods to their subjects. Within 150 years, however, this view of monarchs had altered dramatically: a king was the human, visible sign of the rational state. How did such a momentous shift in political understanding come about? This sweeping book explores the changing cultural significance of the power of European kings from the assassination of France’s Henry III to the death of Louis XIV...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Jacobitism, or support for the exiled Stuarts after the revolution of 1688, has become a topic of great interest in recent years. Historians have debated its influence on Parliamentary politics, but none has yet attempted to explore its broader implications in English society. This study offers a wide-ranging analysis of every aspect of Jacobite activity, from pamphlets and newspapers to songs, cartoons, riots, seditious words, clubs, and armed insurrection. It argues that Jacobitism was not confined to a tiny group of fanatical reactionaries, and that it had a profound impact on various aspects of English life including political thought, literature, popular culture, religion, and elite sociability. It contributed a great deal both to the emergence of conservative attitudes in eighteenth-century England and to the development of a radical critique of Whig government. This paradoxical legacy makes Jacobitism a subject of considerable significance in English political, social, and cultural history. (view table of contents)