A Social History of England, 1500–1750

Keith Wrightson is Randolph W. Townsend Jr Professor of History at Yale University, Connecticut. He previously held positions at the Universities of St Andrews and Cambridge, where he was Professor of Social History. His publications include the ground-breaking English Society, 1580–1680 (1982), Earthly Necessities: Economic Lives in Early Modern Britain (2000) and Ralph Tailor's Summer: A Scrivener, his City and the Plague (2011), as well as many essays on the social history of early modern England. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, a former President of the North American Conference on British Studies and an Honorary Vice-President of the Social History Society.

Introduction: framing early modern England Keith Wrightson; Part I. Discovering the English: 1. Crafting the nation Cathy Shrank; 2. Surveying the people Paul Griffiths; 3. Little commonwealths I: the household and family relationships Linda Pollock; 4. Little commonwealths II: communities Malcolm Gaskill; Part II. Currents of Change: 5. Reformations Alec Ryrie; 6. Words, words, words: education, literacy and print Adam Fox; 7. Land and people Jane Whittle; 8. Urbanization Phil Withington; 9. The people and the law Tim Stretton; 10. Authority and protest John Walter; 11. Consumption and material culture Adrian Green; Part III. Social Identities: 12. 'Gentlemen': re-making the English ruling class Henry French; 13. The 'middling sort': an emergent cultural identity Craig Muldrew; 14. The 'meaner sort': labouring people and the poor Jeremy Boulton; 15. Gender, the body and sexuality Alexandra Shepard; 16. The English and 'others' in England and beyond Alison Games; Coda: history, time and social memory Andy Wood.