A Nation Transformed: England after the Restoration

Description

A Nation Transformed is a major collection of essays by a mix of young and eminent scholars of early modern English history, literature, and political thought. The fruit of an intense interdisciplinary two-day conference held at the Huntington Library, California, it asks whether and in what ways the culture and politics of early modern England was transformed by the second half of the seventeenth century. In sharp contrast to those who have emphasised continuity and the persistence of the ancien regime, the contributors argue that England in 1700 was profoundly different from what it had been in 1640. Essays in the volume deal with changes in natural philosophy, literature, religion, politics, political thought, and political economy. The fresh insights offered here, based on new and innovative research, will interest scholars and students of early modern history, Renaissance and Augustan literature, and historians of political thought.

Alan Houston is Associate Professor of Political Science, University of California, San Diego. He received his Ph. D. from Harvard, and has been Mellon Fellow in the Society of Fellows in the Humanities, Columbia University (1988-89) and Laurence S. Rockefeller Fellow in the University Center for Human Values, Princeton University (1993-94). In 1990 he received the Leo Strauss award from the American Political Science Association for the best doctoral dissertation in political philosophy. His book Algernon Sidney and the Republican Heritage in England and America (Princeton UP, 1991) received the APSA Award for the best book in the field of political theory. Currently he is working on the Levellers and on the political writings of Benjamin Franklin. Steve Pincus was junior fellow in Harvard's prestigious Society of Fellows before joining the faculty at Chicago. His first book Protestantism and Patriotism was published by Cambridge UP in 1996, and he is now working on a major reinterpretation of the 'Glorious Revolution'. also to be published by Cambridge UP. He is also writing, with Adam Fox, a volume of the 'New Oxford History of England'.

' ... an exhilarating and challenging discussion of the theme from various viewpoints.' Lancet