The Making of a Ruling Class
The Making of a Ruling Class
This study provides an extensive survey of the economic activities of the gentry, their role as entrepreneurs and as popularisers of the metropolitan culture of Georgian London. It describes how during the eighteenth century, local elites from remote corners of Britain were amalgamated into one new ruling class, a body distinguished by common attitudes, social outlook, living standards and educational patterns. The author provides a synthesis of social, economic and political changes in the years prior to industrialisation. Political changes are studied in detail, and the changing role of political parties and ideologies is examined. Then, after a comprehensive study of the activities and attitudes of the gentry, the book concludes by attempting to explain precisely why Britain should have led the world in the twin processes of industrialisation and modernisation.
Product details
No date availablePaperback
9780521521949
380 pages
230 × 153 × 26 mm
0.612kg
Table of Contents
- List of maps and tables
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- General introduction
- Part I. Social and Economic Structure: Introduction
- 1. Land and people
- 2. The gentry
- 3. Economic development
- Conclusion to Part I
- Part II. Local and National Politics: Introduction
- 4. Law and order
- 5. Political history 1640–1688: the heroic age
- 6. Political history 1688–1790: the new order
- Conclusion to Part II
- Part III. Society and Culture: Introduction
- 7. The idea of a gentleman
- 8. Education and culture
- 9. The spread of metropolitan standards
- Conclusion to Part III: 'conspicuous antiquity'
- Aftermath: towards the Victorian world
- Conclusion: from Civil War to Industrial Revolution
- Appendices
- Notes
- Index.
