This vast study, first published between 1784 and 1818, and written on an unprecedentedly large historical scale, was begun at the urging of the author's friend Edward Gibbon. William Mitford (1744 1827), a scholar of private means, a magistrate and an MP, was concerned for the preservation of national and military stability, and he in part used his work to draw parallels between the rise of Athenian democracy and the contemporary status of the British constitution. This stance drew some criticism initially, but Mitford's approach was later praised in the wake of the French Revolution. The...

This vast study, first published between 1784 and 1818, and written on an unprecedentedly large historical scale, was begun at the urging of the author's friend Edward Gibbon. William Mitford (1744 1827), a scholar of private means, a magistrate and an MP, was concerned for the preservation of national and military stability, and he in part used his work to draw parallels between the rise of Athenian democracy and the contemporary status of the British constitution. This stance drew some criticism initially, but Mitford's approach was later praised in the wake of the French Revolution. The...

This vast study, first published between 1784 and 1818, and written on an unprecedentedly large historical scale, was begun at the urging of the author's friend Edward Gibbon. William Mitford (1744 1827), a scholar of private means, a magistrate and an MP, was concerned for the preservation of national and military stability, and he in part used his work to draw parallels between the rise of Athenian democracy and the contemporary status of the British constitution. This stance drew some criticism initially, but Mitford's approach was later praised in the wake of the French Revolution. The...

This vast study, first published between 1784 and 1818, and written on an unprecedentedly large historical scale, was begun at the urging of the author's friend Edward Gibbon. William Mitford (1744 1827), a scholar, a magistrate and an MP, was concerned for the preservation of national and military stability, and he in part used his work to draw parallels between the rise of Athenian democracy and the contemporary status of the British constitution. This stance drew some criticism initially, but Mitford's approach was later praised in the wake of the French Revolution. The History, therefore,...