Politics and Society in Great Yarmouth 1660-1722
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Oxford University Press
Published:22nd Feb '96
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This is the first intensive study of the political development of a major English town during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Perry Gauci examines the activities of the local oligarchy over a period which begins in upheaval, in the aftermath of civil war, and ends in the relative stability of early Georgian England. He brings a fresh perspective to such important episodes as the borough regulation of the 1680s, and the `rage of party' after 1689, by broadening the sphere of `politics' to encompass provincial experiences. He examines the role of the town corporation, a little-studied organ of local government, whose membership reveals much about the relationship between social and political change in this period. Gauci challenges accepted views on these corporations, showing them to be much more dynamic, and less self-interested, than is usually supposed. His analysis of the structures of local politics transcends local history and reveals a great deal about the influence of national authorities over provincial life. It is a significant contribution to the urban history of England.
Perry Gauci's carefully researched monograph on Great Yarmouth is ... a welcome addition to the burgeoning historiography, a timely response to the plea made a few years back 'for "a social history of politics" to address the causes of late seventeenth-century conflict' ... If the structural chapters offer important revisionist insights into our understanding of unreformed municipal governments, the narrative section sheds valuable light on the nature of political conflict in the later Stuart era ... this is a fine study which gives us much food for thought. * Tim Harris, Brown University, Parliamentary History, Vol. 16, pt 2, 1997 *
a new and challenging perspective on the political history of this period ... This book is also a valuable corrective to the stereotyped view of eighteenth-century corporations as oligarchies in a state of terminal decline. * R.H. Sweet, St John's College, Oxford, Urban History, Vol. 24, Part 2 - 1997 *
important, scholarly and well-written book ... fine book * Jeremy Black, University of Exeter, BJECS 20.2 (1997) *
ISBN: 9780198206057
Dimensions: 225mm x 146mm x 24mm
Weight: 508g
312 pages