An exploration of links between opinion and governance in Early Modern England, studying moral panics about crime, sex and belief. Hypothesizing that media-driven panics proliferated in the 1700s, with the development of newspapers and government sensibility to opinion, it also considers earlier panics about cross-dressing andwitchcraft."

In "God and "The Bishop"" Cheryl Walker ponders contemporary religious issues raised by the life and poetry of Elizabeth Bishop, making them come alive again through a broad discussion of religious poetry from many traditions, both humorous and mystical.