While nineteenth-century Britain was committed to achieving national integration, it also hoped to maintain regional diversity. Keith Robbins looks at various aspects of life which served to unite or divide the nation, including religion, patterns of eating and drinking, the political system, commercial development, education, language, literature, and music. He concludes that the "British" nation, though not uniform in character, became sufficiently consolidated throughout the nineteenth century to withstand the divisive crises of the early twentieth century, particularly World War I. A...

Christopher Dyer examines the transition in the economy and society of England between 1250 and 1550. Using new sources of evidence, he demonstrates that important structural changes after 1350 built on the commercial growth of the thirteenth century. He shows that development of individual property, response to new consumption patterns, and use of credit and investment, came from the peasantry rather than the aristocracy. An Age of Transition?, a significant new work by a top medievalist, reveals how England was set on course to become the 'first industrial nation'.

The common view of eighteenth-century politics is one of aristocratic dominance coexisting with plebeian vitality. Langford explores the terrain which lay between the high ground of elite rule and the low ground of popular politics, offering a major reassessment of the place of the propertied class.