Gwent County History – serie

A study of the early modern period, from the creation of Monmouthshire by the Act of Union in 1536 to the beginnings of industrialization in the later eighteenth century. It explores the social concerns of this period, including the growth of urbanity and the commercial world, education, poverty and civil war, as well as religion and politics.

This fourth volume in the county history of Gwent/Monmouthshire deals with the explosion of industrial development from 1780 to the eve of the First World War, and as such is first authoritative treatment of the transformation of south-east Wales into a centre of the iron and coal industry.

Two distinguished historians of twentieth-century Britain, especially Wales, marshal seventeen fellow historians to describe the momentous twentieth century in the history of south-east Wales. The book is the fifth and last volume in a magisterial survey of Gwent/Monmouthshire from prehistoric times to the present day. Two World Wars and deep depression tested the resilience of the county's people, while the decline of mining and heavy industry shifted the balance of the county's economy. Other chapters analyse the life and leisure of ordinary people, their cultural, intellectual and sporting interests, their religion which formerly bulked so large in their lives, and the changes in the landscape of town and country.

Gwent in Prehistory and Early History is the first in a major series of five authoritative volumes on the history of Gwent from Prehistoric times to the end of the twentieth century. In this vast time-span, south-east Wales has been at the heart of historic changes that have affected both England and Wales. These changes will be fully explored in Volume I Gwent in Prehistory and Early History; Volume II Gwent in the Middle Ages, 1070-1536; Volume III Early Modern Gwent, 1530-1780; Volume IV Industrial Gwent, 1780-1914; and Volume V Twentieth-century Gwent. In Volume I there are chapters on: the Palaeolithic age; the Mesolithic age; the Neolithic age; Bronze age society; the iron age; the coming of the Romans; Roman Gwent; early medieval society; the structures of society; the literary tradition; clas and llan; llysoedd; the coming of the Normans.