1688: The First Modern RevolutionBased on new archival information, this book upends two hundred years of scholarship on England’s Glorious Revolution to claim that it—not the French Revolution—was the first truly modern revolution For two hundred years historians have viewed England’s Glorious Revolution of 1688–1689 as an un-revolutionary revolution—bloodless, consensual, aristocratic, and above all, sensible. In this brilliant new interpretation Steve Pincus refutes this traditional view.By expanding the interpretive lens to include a broader geographical and chronological frame, Pincus demonstrates that England’s revolution was a European event, that it took place over a number of years, not months, and that it had repercussions in India, North America, the West Indies, and throughout continental Europe. His rich historical narrative, based on masses of new archival research, traces the transformation of English foreign policy, religious culture, and political economy that, he argues, was the intended consequence of the revolutionaries of 1688–1689.James II developed a modernization program that emphasized centralized control, repression of dissidents, and territorial empire. The revolutionaries, by contrast, took advantage of the new economic possibilities to create a bureaucratic but participatory state. The postrevolutionary English state emphasized its ideological break with the past and envisioned itself as continuing to evolve. All of this, argues Pincus, makes the Glorious Revolution—not the French Revolution—the first truly modern revolution. This wide-ranging book reenvisions the nature of the Glorious Revolution and of revolutions in general, the causes and consequences of commercialization, the nature of liberalism, and ultimately the origins and contours of modernity itself. |
Contents
47 | |
PART III REVOLUTION | 219 |
PART IV REVOLUTIONARY TRANSFORMAT I ON | 303 |
PART V CONCLUSION | 435 |
Abbreviations | 487 |
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Anglican April army August Barillon London Barillon Windsor Beinecke Bodleian Bonrepaus London British Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire SRO Cambridge Catholic Catholicism Charles Church of England Citters London coffeehouses December Declaration Diary Dissenters Duke Dutch Earl economic English Entering Book Europe European February France French Gilbert Burnet Glorious Revolution Hague Henry History House ideological II’s insisted Ireland Jacobite James II James II's James’s January Jesuit John Evelyn July June king king’s later seventeenth century laws Letter liberty London Newsletter Lord Louis XIV March Memoirs modern monarchy Monmouth nation November October Oxford Papers Parliament political Protestant radical rebellion recataloged regime religion religious Reresby revolutionary Richard Robert Roger Morrice Seignelay September 1688 Sermon Sir Edward Harley Sir John Sir John Lowther Sir Ralph Verney Sir William Trumbull Southwell Sunderland Thomas Tillotson Tory trade unfolioed University Press Verney MSS Whig Whitehall William Trumbull Williamite