This book examines the development of the English state during the long seventeenth century, emphasising the impersonal forces which shape the uses of political

The book is divided into two sections. The first half provides a historiography of the literature on state formation from antiquity to the present day. In the s

The rise of social history has had a transforming influence on the history of early modern England. It has broadened the historical agenda to include many previ

What was the interrelation between language, power, and socio-economic inequality in England, c. 1550-1750? Early modern England was a hierarchical society that

A study of three centuries of radical ideas and activity in English political and social history.