Silver Library – serie

The Age of Improvement has long established itself as a classic of modern historical writing. Widely read and quoted it has had a unique influence on teaching and research. This second edition draws on the great volume of new research - produced by Lord Briggs amongst others, since its original publication. The book stresses both the underlying unity and the rich variety of the age, and raises fundamental issues about a period of crucial change in British history - industrialisation, war, constitutional change and the attitudes of politicians towards it, political development, and, not least, society and culture. In the background are the new economic powers based on the development of a coal and iron technology; in the foreground, new social and political problems and new ways of tackling them. The author also discusses perceptions of, and reactions to, changing circumstances, the influence of religion and science on national life, and changing styles in art and literature. The story ends, not with a full stop but with a question mark. Could improvement be maintained? Could balance and progress continue to be reconciled?

Opening at the climax of the Renaissance, this text chronicles the dawning of a new age on the continent up to the Reformation.

Opening at the height of the Renaissance, the book chronicles the dawning of a new age on the European continent. Koenigsberger paints a detailed picture of the Reformation and its significance as increasingly powerful nations began to intrude on their subjects’ public and private lives. He gives account of the Counter-Reformation and the political and economic crisis that accompanied it, and an in-depth discussion of the age of Louis XIV and the balance of power in Europe. A full chapter addresses the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, and throughout attention is given to social, cultural and intellectual developments.The book concludes with a summary of the situation throughout Europe on the eve of the French Revolution, and the dramatic changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution and the beginnings of a consumer society.

This well-established survey of Europe explores the various political structures of the age - empires, monarchies, city-republics - and how they functioned and related to one another. It examines the growing importance of town-life in the sixteenth century, the economic background of political change, while giving full weight to the cultural acheivements of the age..