A powerful account of life and loss in the Great War, as told by British soldiers in their letters home

This book was inspired by the author's discovery of an extraordinary cache of letters from a soldier who was killed on the Western Front during the First World War. The soldier was his grandfather, and the letters had been tucked away, unread and unmentioned for many decades. Intrigued by the heartbreak and history of these family letters, Fletcher sought out the correspondence of other British soldiers who had volunteered for the fight against Germany. This resulting...

Childhood in question brings together some of today's foremost writers working on the history of childhood.

This book offers a fundamental critique of conventional views of sixteenth-century Irish history that have stressed the centrality of colonization and military confrontation. It argues that reform rather than conquest was the aim of Tudor policy-makers, but shows that the immense difficulties faced by the reformers in pursuing their objectives forced them to make administrative innovations that ultimately contradicted and undermined their original policy.

This is the first history and analysis of the intelligence and espionage activities of the regime of Charles II (1660 85). It is concerned with the mechanics, activities and philosophy of the intelligence system which developed under the auspices of the office of the Secretary of State and which emerged in the face of the problems of conspiracy and international politics. It examines the development of intelligence networks on a local and international level, the use made of the Post Office, codes and ciphers, and the employment of spies, informers and assassins. The careers of a number of...

Religion, and Puritanism in particular, was a crucially important influence in seventeenth-century England. This book attempts to trace the way in which Puritan clergymen saw themselves and the world in which they lived. It discusses the changes they wanted to make to the Church of England in terms of services and in terms of how they wanted to replace bishops. By looking at such matters through the networks of friendship and alliances made by the ministers, a new picture emerges of the role played by Puritans in the decades leading up to the English Civil War.

This study of popular responses to the English Reformation analyzes how ordinary people received, interpreted, debated, and responded to religious change. It differs from other studies by arguing that the subject cannot be understood simply by asking theological questions about people's beliefs, but must be understood by asking political questions about how they negotiated with state power. Therefore, it concerns political as well as religious history, since it asserts that, even at the popular level, political and theological processes were inseparable in the sixteenth century.

A revisionist account of the career of Elizabeth I's 'favourite', the 2nd Earl of Essex.

This book focuses on the "after-life" of historical texts in the period between the arrival of printing in England and the early eighteenth century. Whereas previous studies of historical writing during this period have focused on their authors and on their style or methodology, this work examines the social forces that controlled what was written, and the impact of readers and publishers on authors. The intent is to situate the study of history books within the current literature on the history of the book and the history of print culture.

The aftermath of the Popish Plot and the subsequent succession crisis of the years 1678 to 1681 are the context for this new study. It asks two key questions: was there an exclusion crisis? and did these years witness the birth of modern political parties? The author argues that the unrest was not simply due to a centrally organized party machine based around the single issue of exclusion; but was a broad-based controversy about the succession, fears of popery and arbitrary government which produced ideological polarization and political sophistication. Part One examines central politics to...

This book discusses the origins, impact and aftermath of the Civil War in Warwickshire, examining administration, religion and politics in their social context. The focus is mainly on the landed elite, but the importance of relationships between members of the elite and their social inferiors is also stressed. Early chapters discuss the economic and social character of Warwickshire; a middle section examines the onset of the Civil War in 1642; and finally there is a discussion of the economic impact of the war and the administrative, political and religious changes of the 1640s and 1650s,...