Society in Early Modern England

Phil Withington is Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Cambridge

"This book aims high and deserves careful reading."BBC History Magazine"Trenchantly underscores the growing importance of sociability while challenging us to think about the work of words, and the vexed matter of periodization."The American Historical Review"Phil Withington's book is important as it helps to refocus the debate away from the problematic 'modernisation' theories and unto a different battleground: historcal linguistics."Reviews in History"Withington helps us to view the early modern period in a similar way to those who lived through it. He presents the reader with an interpretation of the early modern world that forces us to re-evaluate our preconceptions and to think about this period in terms not just of its history, but also of its language. Withington breathes new life into an often ill-defined historical period and changes the way in which we view 'Early Modern'"Parergon"Society in Early Modern England is a major work that will command the attention of all scholars and students interested in the period. Dr. Withington reveals time and again that he is an adept thinker and careful reader, as well as a first-rate historian, as eager to struggle with conceptual problems as to analyse complicated source material. This book will force many to rethink their understanding of the early modern period and what it means, as well as the ways in which we imagine and categorise historical periods in general."Andrew Hadfield, University of Sussex"Withington offers a broad geneaology of historians' use of the term 'early modern', and finds striking similarities with the ways that early moderns themselves had begun to describe their world. It is a notably fresh, wide-ranging and stimulating argument about the analytic value of the term and the disinctiveness of early modern society."Mike Braddick, University of Sheffield "A rigorous and persuasive charting of key concepts and discourses which not only reformulates the significance of the 'early modern' period but also gives that period a new shape."Keith Wrightson, Yale University

• List of Figures and Illustrations. Acknowledgements.Introduction: Early Modernity and its Malcontents.Section One: The History of an Historical Category.Chapter Two: The Victorian Struggle for Modern History.Chapter Three: The Concept of Early Modernity.Section Two: Keywords.Chapter Four: What did 'Society' Mean in Early Modern England?Chapter Five: The Rise and Fall of 'Commonwealth'.Chapter Six: 'Modern' and the English Vernacular.Section Three: Practice.Chapter Seven: The Sociable Self.Chapter Eight: Colony and State.Conclusion: We Really Are Modern.Bibliography.