Keith E. Wrightson, Randolph W. Townsend Jr. Professor of History, Yale University
This course is intended to provide an up-to-date introduction to the development of English society between the late fifteenth and the early eighteenth centuries. Particular issues addressed in the lectures will include: the changing social structure; households; local communities; gender roles; economic development; urbanization; religious change from the Reformation to the Act of Toleration; the Tudor and Stuart monarchies; rebellion, popular protest and civil war; witchcraft; education, literacy and print culture; crime and the law; poverty and social welfare; the changing structures and dynamics of political participation and the emergence of parliamentary government.
Brewer, John. The Sinews of Power. New York: Routledge, 1989.
Canny, Nicholas, ed. The Oxford History of the British Empire: Origins of Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Cust, Richard and Ann Hughes, eds. The English Civil War. London: Arnold, 1997.
Gunn, S.J. Early Tudor Government, 1485-1558. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1995.
Guy, John, ed. The Tudor Monarchy. London: Arnold, 1997.
Haigh, Christopher. English Reformations. Religion, Politics and Society under the Tudors. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Kishlansky, Mark. A Monarchy Transformed: Britain, 1603-1714. New York: Penguin, 1996.
Reay, Barry. Popular Cultures in England, 1550-1750. New York: Longman, 1998.
Slack, Paul. "The English Urban Landscape" in The Urban Setting (English Urban History 1500-1780). Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1977.
Slack, Paul. Poverty and Policy in Tudor and Stuart England. New York: Longman, 1988.
Wrightson, Keith. English Society, 1580-1680. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1982.
One five-page paper, one ten-page paper, and a final examination.
Short paper: 20%
Long paper: 40%
Final exam: 25%
Participation in discussion section: 15%