Print and Public Politics in the English Revolution (Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History)
Cambridge University Press, 11/14/2013
EAN 9781107044425, ISBN10: 1107044421
Hardcover, 472 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm
Language: English
This is a major reassessment of the communications revolution of the seventeenth century. Using a wealth of archival evidence and the considerable output of the press, Jason Peacey demonstrates how new media - from ballads to pamphlets and newspapers - transformed the English public's ability to understand and participate in national political life. He analyses how contemporaries responded to political events as consumers of print; explores what they were able to learn about national politics; and examines how they developed the ability to appropriate a variety of print genres in order to participate in novel ways. Amid structural change and conjunctural upheaval, he argues that there occurred a dramatic re-shaping of the political nation, as citizens from all walks of life developed new habits and practices for engaging in daily political life, and for protecting and advancing their interests. This ultimately involved experience-led attempts to rethink the nature of representation and accountability.
Introduction
Part I. Consuming Print
Introduction
1. The ownership of cheap print
2. The accessibility of print
3. Readers, reception and the authority of print
Part II. Following Parliament
Introduction
4. Analysing parliament and its problems
5. Access to parliament
6. Monitoring personalities and performance
Part III. Taking Part
Introduction
7. Authors, printing and participation
8. Print and petitioning
9. Print and lobbying
10. Printing, mass mobilisation and protesting
11. Holding representatives to account
Conclusion.
'Peacey makes his argument with a staggering array of sources and helps to evolve new ways of unerstanding the complexities in the interaction between what we used to call 'high' and 'low' politics.' History Today