Small Towns in Early Modern Europe

"...Clark has provided scholars with a reference work for Europe as a whole that will be the indispensable platform for further work on a regional or national basis. By containing so many specialized studies covering the entire early modern period in Europe, Clark's volume establishes the comparative approach as the definitive reference point. His introduction provides a valuable synthesis of the similarity, interpretive difficulty, and importance of small towns within their larger political and economic networks." Journal of Interdisciplinary History

"...a many-faceted picture of urban life outside the major cities of early modern Europe. It will clearly be of interest to the economic and urban historian, and there is also much to be gleaned from it by those interested in the process of state building, the interaction of center and locality, and the evolution of consumer culture." William and Mary Quarterly

"Here we have a collection of essays that advances both general history and the urban theme it addresses: specialists in the history of the European regions that are covered will welcome some very useful additions to the literature in English." Alan Dyer, Journal of Modern History

Editorial preface; 1. Introduction Peter Clark; 2. The mainstays of the urban fringe: Norwegian small towns 1500-1800 Finn-Einar Eliassen; 3. Small towns in the periphery: population and economy of small towns in Sweden and Finland during the early modern period Sven Lilja; 4. Small towns in eastern central Europe Vera Bacskai; 5. Small towns in England 1550-1850: national and regional trends Peter Clark; 6. The cultural role of small towns in England 1600-1800 Michael Reed; 7. Small towns in early modern Ireland Raymond Gillespie; 8. In search of the small town in early nineteenth-century France Bernard Lepetit; 9. Small towns in early modern Germany: the case of Hesse 1500-1800 Holger Graf; 10. Demography and hierarchy: the small towns and the urban network in sixteenth-century Flanders Peter Stabel; 11. Domestic demand and urbanization in the eighteenth century: demographic and functional evidence from the small towns of Brabant Bruno Blonde; 12. The small towns of northern Italy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: an overview Peter Musgrave; 13. Cities, towns and small towns in Castile 1500-1800 Juan Gelabert; Bibliography; Index.