A very well- rounded introduction to a period of British history that should be better known. The author strikes a good balance between the political narrative and his coverage of the social, economic, cultural, and military developments of the age. This book should be accessible to anyone with a serious interest in this period in European history.

Writes Professor Roger Hainsworth, formerly of Adelaide University, South Australia: Students of English history will welcome this new volume in the New Oxford History of England series.1689-1727 is a very significant period for the history of the British people and indeed it proved important to many European people also for this reason: during it Britain became a great power and in the process the growing hegemony of France over western Europe was first confronted, fought against and finally halted. More of this later. Dr. Hoppit, although his eye is undimmed by romantic illusions about past eras, has a positive tale to tell. He writes that in late seventeen and early eighteenth century England "political discord was contained and then undermined. Warfare was endured and survived. Britain's empire was extended and its value increased. Population began slowly to grow. Many towns flourished. Agriculture, industry and commerce all showed signs of expansion .... society was not stagnant, it was on the move." This favourable assessment might have astonished contemporaries both at home and abroad. They still perceived England as politically unstable, riven by party ("faction"), and menaced by the apparently unbridgeable dynastic dispute between the Jacobite supporters of the exiled James II and then of his son (the Old Pretender) and the Whig and Orange Tory supporters of William III, Anne and the Protestant Succession (the Hanoverians). Meanwhile the British state was menaced by growing poor rates, menacing numbers of unemployed, seemingly endless foreign wars, and a growing mountain of debt: all presided over by a government which appeared more powerful and uncheckable every year and was backed by that worst of all English nightmares: a permanent army. Dr. Hoppit explores these fears and traumas incisively and expertly and makes it clearer than it perhaps has ever been made before why the positive developments prevailed and the worst fears ebbed away. The fundamental problem for historians of the period is to explain how England become a great power during the reigns of William III and Anne. Cromwell's disciplined army and a powerful navy had made England a great power fleetingly during the 1650s. However, there was no way to finance these prodigies on a long term basis. The restored Charles II almost went broke disbanding these extravagant instruments of power. England's resurgence in the two decades following the Glorious Revolution of 1689 astonished foreign observers who had believed, reasonably enough, that England's small population doomed it to the side-lines of European politics. In a long contest between Britain and France surely there could be only one result? England with Wales had only about 5.25 million in 1700. Scotland had 1.23 million and Ireland about 2 million. France, the most populous country in Europe (including Russia) had 22 million. These bare statistics proved deceptive. Although eighty per cent of England's population were rural dwellers, almost thirty per cent of the population were engaged in some form of industry. Manchester was then only a large village but Defoe estimated it provided "outside" employment to 40,000 weavers and allied trades. In fact England was the most urbanised country in Europe and if this was partly because ten per cent of the people lived in London her urbanisation was to increase hugely during the eighteenth century while London's population stagnated. Industrial strength and a powerful navy were gradually joined by a formidable army. During Anne's reign it would be led by one of history's greatest commanders who was also a remarkable diplomat and builder of alliances: the Duke of Marlborough. The financial problems of the mid seventeenth century were resolved by taxation passed freely if grumpily by the House of Commons which had now become a permanent institution of state rather than an irregular occurrence. The taxes funded that unusual novelty the National Debt which was partly managed by an enlarged Treasury assisted by an inspired creation, the Bank of England. The two great European wars of the period weakened the Continental powers, especially France, but left Britain stronger than when she entered them. Many speculated about this paradox but no great power seemed able to copy the method even supposing they understood it. All these matters receive due attention in this volume. So also does a range of other important topics: the remarkable growth of parliamentary government which in time would make possible the political peace of Sir Robert Walpole's long prime ministership during the 1720s; the decline into impotence of the Jacobites; the astonishing efflorescence of a print culture of books, newspapers and pamphlets; the slow decline of the Anglican hegemony in the face of stubborn Dissenters and ideas of religious tolerance; the extraordinarily rich burst of public and private building ranging from Wren's St Paul's to Vanbrugh and Hawksmoor's masterpieces (Castle Howard and Blenheim the best known of many); and the steady advance of pragmatic, experimental science. This last owed much to one man and in a fine passage Hoppit writes that the year his period ends is better defined not by the death of George I but by the death aged 84 of one of his subjects. Interred like a prince in Westminster Abbey with the Lord Chancellor, two dukes and three earls among his pall-bearers, he was Sir Isaac Newton. That indeed was the end of an era. This is a worthy addition to a very collectable series. There are the minor flaws often found when the author has to shoehorn a complex discourse into a confined space. Stylistic faults occasionally jar and infelicities of sentence structure ("there were those (such as Locke had done) who strongly argued ...") often require the reader to turn back to disentangle the sense. However, Dr. Hoppit's text is informative, interesting, thought-provoking and engrossing. He has explored the diverse facets of his subject with care and sensitivity to their nuances. All students of this significant period will be in his debt for decades to come. Had it been put in my hands when I was studying this period as an undergraduate I would have gnawed on it like a famished wolf.

A scholarly investigation into the Atlantic voyages and destinations of those listed in the 1635 London Port Register. The author follows their careers in the extant colonial and English records before and after their voyages. Excellent insights into the English colonies in New England, Virginia, Bermuda, and Providence Island in the Caribbean.

Questions of why these travelers left, how they traveled, what they found when they arrived, how they prospered or failed, and those that returned to their homeland or traveled to other colonies are all dealt with. Excellent sections on the age and sex compositions of the different destinations under study and the effects of this on their colonial development.

Lots of information on the flight of the puritans from Archbishop Laud and the different gathered church societies they established in the puritan colonies. The continuous migration over the life cycle of these English travelers within England, to London, across the Atlantic and within and between colonies is the ongoing theme of the book.

This book by Alison Games, based on her PhD dissertation if I am to understand correctly, is an outstanding piece of original research. Games successfully combines her torturous mining of the archives of the UK, Bermuda, US & elsewhere, with a good understanding of statistics, with intellectually honest speculations about the data (where it exists & where it does not, carefully showing where each hold), with a comprehension of the sweep of history in which this work fits, with a fine writing style. This book is denser than most colonial history, but it is worth pushing through that density for the unique insights the history carries with it & the stimulation of mind the book provides to the reader. Fundamentally, as Games shows, history is about ordinary human beings. The aggregation of their actions is what makes something worthy of the historians attention. In Games work, we can see the individual actions of UK "citizens" in the 1500s & 1600s in making the trek to colonies. This book should be on anyone's required reading list for understanding what happened in the British colonies early-on.

John Ray's book is in keeping with the excitement and suspense of other accounts of this fascinating battle (the only one in history to be fought completely in the air), but he takes the point of view of Britain's Sir Hugh Dowding, Commander-in-chief of RAF Fighter Command. Ray tells of the inner workings of the RAF, the political battles and clashes of personality that were happening as the battle was being fought and eventually won. It isn't a hagiography of Dowding, but defends his positions and points out his weaknesses. The details on the battle are given as they relate to Dowding's story, without a rigid historical chronology, but containing some terrific anecdotes (such as Dowding's visit to the French Armie de L'Aire headquarters in March of 1940, which helped him make up his mind not to send any more of his fighters to be destroyed in what was obviously a lost cause.

This is a book for those who already know the Battle of Britain and wish to delve deeper into the personalities involed, rather than a complete record of events during the Summer of 1940. It is an intellectual and entertaining look at the Battle from behind the desk of its most tenacious leader.

What we get with this book is a sure-footed survey of indian writing in English that feels like a grand tour by a docent who also happens to be your close friend. Amitava Kumar is an emerging literary voice from the indian subcontinent. The intimate prose evokes feelings of alienation and displacement that serve as a recurrent theme in a manner common to many expatriate authors but what is special with this book is a poignant sociological component. The author is not content to rely on his own keen observations of the real world; he delves into the world of fiction that many writers of eminence have created. The academic and the writer of fiction come together in a way that left me feeling good about myself.

Several photographs adorning the book give an air of authencity to the prose. The book brings a sense of immediacy to the forgotten places in india in a way that was never done before.With this book he has created a portal to his brain, reminding me of the movie "Being John Malkovich".

A compilation of G.K. Chesterton's writings on men and women, children, sex, divorce, marriage, and the family, Chesterton's essays are as appropriate today as they were when they were written.

Chesteron, as only Chesterton can, defends the sacredness of marriage and the home so desperately in need of salvaging today.

Broken into short chapters, the book is easily read and very enjoyable.

Calder has a gift for summarizing complex details in a straightforward manner. The subject is very interesting for first year students and professors alike. Unfortunately the book is out of print, however it is still a key text for several Universities so you may find copies available in their libraries.
-bh

This is the most comphrensive guide I have seen of British and Celtic mytholog. It's organized like a dictonary, from Arthur to Ymir. Any myth guru will get a kick out of it!

The late Nicholas Schaffner packed tons of detail into "The British Invasion," with the first section devoted to the major artists of the 60s (the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Kinks, The Who, David Bowie, Marc Bolan and T-Rex, and Pink Floyd), followed by short vignettes of the numerous groups who also inhabit the pop music firmament - nearly everyone who recorded from 1962 to 1982, from the Small Faces to the Police and from Yes to Siouxie and the Banshees.

The quality of the writing is what makes this book so enjoyable. Schaffner dispels myths, clarifies histories, and lays out credible evidence that each of the major acts has made an indelible mark on rock music (although some may wonder why such greats as Eric Clapton and Led Zeppelin were relegated to the second section).

In the second section, Schaffner is joined by other music writers for a thorough review of British pop, and though the year at which the book ends ('82) truncates the careers of folks like Elvis Costello, it's still a fascinating read. Also included are each band's hit records, dates of release and chart positions.

For a book with so few pictures (and black and white at that), it is a must for anyone interested in pop music history. One subjective criticism: much as T-Rex may have predated Bowie's glam-rock, I don't think that Marc Bolan really deserves a spot in the Top Eight.

Although it may be a hard-to-find book, it's worth it.

So much impressed with this superb study, I have now got the strong desire to introduce it to the Japanese reader who know little about the whole range of history of the British New Left movement and their struggle for the humane socialism under the cold-war period. As a part of the long history of the emancipation of mankind, the New Left movemnt deserves to be carefully studied and this book has done it quite successfully. As a Japanese leftist, I strongly recommend this book to all those dismayed by the recent total retreat of leftism in Japan.

A seminal work bringing together in one volume the most up to date scholarship on the emergence of the City of London as the premier financial centre during the latter half of the nineteenth century. The breadth of scholarship as exemplified in the various sections notably by van Helten, Cassis as well as Kennedy is particularly impressive. The critical and controversial debates about the volumes of British investment overseas, the role of investment trusts, British investment in mineral extractive industies especially in gold mining in South Africa around the turn of the century are examined in detail.