Kings and desperate menTransaction Publishers, 1.11.2009 - 323 sivua The goal of Kings and Desperate Men is to provide a picture of eighteenth-century England up to the French Revolution. Kronenberger's work lies much closer to a social chronicle than an orthodox history, and is more concerned with manners and tastes than with treaties and wars. Kings and Desperate Men reveals what life was like for both aristocrats and commoners: their family lives, experience of larger society, habits, diet, fashions, religion, and artistic tastes. In tracing these topics for both city and country dwellers, he artfully communicates the very real division between the vivacity of London and the regular, fixed, and monotonous character of country life. The division is vital to understanding the age and the transformations it would experience. Yet Kronenberger does not ignore the more traditional historical landmarks. Kroenberger treats the characters of the leading political actors: Walpole, Bolingbroke, Burke, Fox, and Pitt, while providing the reader with a sweeping account of the formation of political parties and constitutional shifts of power between the monarchy and parliament. Students of the period who despair at its political complexities will fi nd much to appreciate in Kronenberger's condensed and easy to understand formulations. As for philosophy, Kronenberger refers to thinkers and ideas as they influence English life; especially Locke and Hume. Their ideas and reputations are explained as part of the character of society. The same is true for economics. More attention is given to the social gains of middle-class shopkeepers and the eighteenth-century zeal for stock speculation than to formal schools of thought. Especially notable is Kronenberger's treatment of both the arts and the artists of the eighteenth century-theatre, opera, music, literature, architecture, and painting. |
Kirjan sisältä
Tulokset 1 - 5 kokonaismäärästä 20
... throne, resulted from ambitions of Louis XIV that threatened the balance of power in Europe. The throne of Spain having fallen vacant, Louis sought to confer it upon his grandson, Philip of Anjou. By blood Philip was eligible; by the ...
... and began to create, what yet far from fully existed, the modern system of governing by party. When Anne came to the throne in 1702, the Tories were in ofiice, with a majority in the Commons. It was [5 [THE LAST STUART]
... throne, which, even on the verge of ruin, Louis balked at. So the war went on. But now three events, very disastrous to the Whigs, followed fast on one another. The first was the battle of Malplaquet. Marlborough never lost an ...
... throne of Spain meant much less than the throne of England; and when he remembered that written covenants had not prevented Philip from seizing a Spanish crown, he Pretender from seizing a British one. Nor was it entirely. might suspect ...
... throne. Even there, however, his claim was contested, since in Anne's time there was current a foolish fiction that James II's son was not his son, but something brought to Mary of Modena's childbed in a warming-pan. That story caused ...
Sisältö
3 | |
16 | |
Two or Three Characters | 25 |
Walpole and the House of Hanover | 42 |
Arisocrats with a Portrait of One of Them | 60 |
Shopkeepers | 89 |
The Poor | 98 |
The Arts | 108 |
Bath | 183 |
The Wesleyan Movement | 189 |
Empire and Revolution | 203 |
Kings and Counsellors | 215 |
The Great World | 247 |
The World Below | 263 |
The World Within | 273 |
The Bully and the Fop | 309 |
The Artist | 131 |
Country Matters | 161 |
The Country Gentleman | 168 |
Oxford and Cambridge | 175 |
READING LIST | 321 |
INDEX | i |
Muita painoksia - Näytä kaikki
Kings and Desperate Men: Life in Eighteenth-century England Louis Kronenberger Rajoitettu esikatselu - 2017 |
Kings and Desperate Men: Life in Eighteenth-century England Louis Kronenberger Rajoitettu esikatselu - 2017 |