The Sense of the People

'This much anticipated re-examination of English urban political culture builds upon the scholarship of a generation and formulates a narrative of political change that makes imperial considerations crucial … This book is a welcome advance in understanding, and an invitation to further work.' The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History

• Part I. The National Context: Introduction: The People, Towns and Politics of eighteenth-Century England: 1. Print, people and culture in the urban Renaissance; 2. Loyalism abounding to the chief of sinners: the reconfiguration of opposition politics, 1714–35; 3. Patriotic adventure: libertarianism, war and empire, 1736–62; 4. Patriot's apogee: Wilkite radicalism and the cult of resistance, 1763–74; 5. The crisis: radicalism, loyalism and the American War, 1774–85; Part II. The Cases of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Norwich: 6. Changing contexts: Newcastle and Norwich in the eighteenth century; 7. The rejection of deference: Newcastle; 8. Clientage and its discontents: Norwich; Conclusions: the people, the state and the subject.