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  • Cited by 52
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
March 2010
Print publication year:
2001
Online ISBN:
9780511660207

Book description

Addressing the dynamics of power in early modern societies, this book challenges the existing tendency to see past societies in terms of binary oppositions - such as male/female, rich/poor, rulers/ruled - in which the disadvantaged have influence only in moments of direct confrontation. Drawing on recent social theory, the essays offer a series of micro-sociologies of power in early modern society, ranging from the politics of age, gender and class to the politics of state-building in the post-Reformation confessional state. They explore the weapons with which subordinated groups in their everyday lives could moderate the exercise of power over them. Recovering the agency of the disadvantaged, the book also explores the limits to the power that the disadvantaged could claim in the past. Its findings also have relevance for thinking about inequality in present-day societies.

Reviews

‘The editors’ achievement is that they have assimilated all the best recent work on their theme and set out a prospectus for fruitful analysis of power relations in early modern England that leaves behind the well-worn dynamic of elite and popular cultures in favour of a highly sophisticated new model. They bring out the sheer complexity of social and political relations in England and Ireland, and provide a convincing framework for further research.’

Anthony Fletcher - Institute of Historical Research, University of London

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