English Radicalism, 1550-1850

Front Cover
Glenn Burgess, Matthew Festenstein
Cambridge University Press, 2007 - History - 381 pages
An exploration of the place of radical ideas and activity in English political and social history over three centuries. Its core concern is whether a long-term history of radicalism can be written. Are the things that historians label 'radical' linked into a single complex radical tradition, or are they separate phenomena linked only by the minds and language of historians? Does the historiography of radicalism uncover a repressed dimension of English history, or is it a construct that serves the needs of the present more than the understanding of the past? The book contains a variety of answers to these questions. As well as an introduction and eleven substantive chapters, it also includes two 'afterwords' which reflect on the implications of the book as a whole for the study of radicalism. The distinguished list of contributors is drawn from a variety of disciplines, including history, political science, and literary studies.
 

Contents

List of Contributors vii
1
A politics of emergency in the reign of Elizabeth I
17
the new intertext
37
Radicalism and the English Revolution
62
late Stuart radicals
87
manners
115
the radical
135
explaining popular radicalism
157
the radical
190
Jeremy Benthams radicalism
217
Religion and the origins of radicalism
241
Joseph Hume and the reformation
285
Radicalism revisited
311
Reassessing radicalism in a traditional
338
Index
373
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