As long as there have been governments, ordinary people have been acting in a variety of often informal or extralegal ways to influence the rulers who claimed authority over them. Shaping History shows how ordinary people broke down the institutional and cultural barriers that separated elite from popular politics in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe and entered fully into the historical process of European state formation. Wayne te Brake's outstanding synthesis builds on the many studies of popular political action in specific settings and conflicts, locating the interaction...
As long as there have been governments, ordinary people have been acting in a variety of often informal or extralegal ways to influence the rulers who...
As long as there have been formal governments, there has been political contention, an interaction between ruler and subjects involving claims and counterclaims, compliance or resistance, cooperation, resignation, condescension, and resentment. Where political studies tend to focus on either those who rule or those who are ruled, the essays in this volume call our attention to the interaction between these forces at the very heart of contentious politics.
Written by prominent scholars of political and social history, these essays introduce us to a variety of political actors: peasants and...
As long as there have been formal governments, there has been political contention, an interaction between ruler and subjects involving claims and cou...
