Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations, Figures, Maps and Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Notes on Contributors
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 The Making and Remaking of Early Modern English Social History
- 2 Brokering Fatherhood: Illegitimacy and Paternal Rights and Responsibilities in Early Modern England
- 3 Gender, Sexuality and the Consumption of Musical Culture in Eighteenth-Century London
- 4 Where was Mrs Turner? Governance and Gender in an Eighteenth-Century Village
- 5 Local Arithmetic: Information Cultures in Early Modern England
- 6 Intoxicants and the Early Modern City
- 7 Food, Drink and Social Distinction in Early Modern England
- 8 Written Obligations, Litigation and Neighbourliness, 1580–1680
- 9 Witchcraft and Neighbourliness in Early Modern England
- 10 Deference, Paternalism and Popular Memory in Early Modern England
- 11 Work, Reward and Labour Discipline in Late Seventeenth-Century England
- 12 Living in Poverty in Eighteenth-Century Terling
- 13 From Commonwealth to Public Opulence: The Redefinition of Wealth and Government in Early Modern Britain
- Appendix: Bibliography of the Published Writings of keith Wrightson from 1974 to 2011
- Index
- Tabula Gratulatoria
- STUDIES IN EARLY MODERN CULTURAL, POLITICAL AND SOCIAL HISTORY
1 - The Making and Remaking of Early Modern English Social History
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations, Figures, Maps and Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Notes on Contributors
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 The Making and Remaking of Early Modern English Social History
- 2 Brokering Fatherhood: Illegitimacy and Paternal Rights and Responsibilities in Early Modern England
- 3 Gender, Sexuality and the Consumption of Musical Culture in Eighteenth-Century London
- 4 Where was Mrs Turner? Governance and Gender in an Eighteenth-Century Village
- 5 Local Arithmetic: Information Cultures in Early Modern England
- 6 Intoxicants and the Early Modern City
- 7 Food, Drink and Social Distinction in Early Modern England
- 8 Written Obligations, Litigation and Neighbourliness, 1580–1680
- 9 Witchcraft and Neighbourliness in Early Modern England
- 10 Deference, Paternalism and Popular Memory in Early Modern England
- 11 Work, Reward and Labour Discipline in Late Seventeenth-Century England
- 12 Living in Poverty in Eighteenth-Century Terling
- 13 From Commonwealth to Public Opulence: The Redefinition of Wealth and Government in Early Modern Britain
- Appendix: Bibliography of the Published Writings of keith Wrightson from 1974 to 2011
- Index
- Tabula Gratulatoria
- STUDIES IN EARLY MODERN CULTURAL, POLITICAL AND SOCIAL HISTORY
Summary
Understanding ourselves in time
There cannot be a ‘new history’ in quite the sense that Einstein founded a ‘new physics’. … Nevertheless the shift of interest towards inquiries of the sort which are reported with such brevity and sketchiness in this book, ought perhaps to be called a new branch of history.
The phrase ‘sociological history’ has been occasionally used here … as its title.… This is mainly to register a distinction in subject matter, for confessedly historical writing has not previously concerned itself with births, marriages and deaths as such, nor has it dwelt so exclusively on the shape and development of social structure. But the outlook is novel as well as the material, at least in its emphasis. Perhaps the distinctive feature of the attitude is the frank acceptance of the truth that all historical knowledge, from one point of view, and that an important and legitimate one, is knowledge about ourselves, and the insistence on understanding by contrast.
Peter Laslett (1965)When I read Peter Laslett's The World we have Lost (1965) I literally sat up all night to finish it, and it made me want to sign up for the ‘new social history’ under his supervision. His phrase ‘understanding ourselves in time’ encapsulates for me what this enterprise is all about.
Keith Wrightson (2011)- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Remaking English SocietySocial Relations and Social Change in Early Modern England, pp. 1 - 40Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2013