By Robert O. Bucholz and Joseph P. Ward

Between 1550 and 1750 London became the greatest city in Europe and one of the most vibrant economic and cultural centres in the world. This book is a history of London during this crucial period of its rise to world-wide prominence, during which it dominated the economic, political, social and cultural life of the British Isles, as never before nor since. London incorporates the best recent work in urban history, contemporary accounts from Londoners and tourists, and fictional works featuring the city in order to trace London’s rise and explore its role as a harbinger of modernity, while examining how its citizens coped with those achievements. London covers the full range of life in London, from the splendid galleries of Whitehall to the damp and sooty alleyways of the East End. Readers will brave the dangers of plague and fire, witness the spectacles of the Lord Mayor’s Pageant and the hangings at Tyburn, and take refreshment in the city’s pleasure-gardens, coffee-houses and taverns.

Reviews:

“As an account of how and why London is London, however, this is the best book to come along in a generation.” -British Heritage Magazine

“Bucholz and Ward explore the rise of Europe’s preeminent entrepôt and metropolis in this engaging account of London and its people. Their superlative integration of the worlds of high culture and popular experience will enrich the study of English literature, society, and politics from the Reformation through the Enlightenment.” – Gary De Krey, Professor of British and European History, St. Olaf College

“There is a big story here – how, between 1550 and 1750, London became a great world capital – but there are also a thousand small and even more wonderful stories about the men and women who walked the city’s streets. Their experiences, their hopes, and their disappointments come vividly to life in this compulsively readable account.” – Lena Cowen Orlin, author of Locating Privacy in Tudor London

“This book is a must for anyone interested in London. It covers the period when London rose from being a quite important Northern European trading center to become the greatest international port in the world at the hub of not just the emerging British Empire but European and North American trade. The internationally connected city, at the center of trade, determined the character of the city it has become today, including the weight of its international finance and trade sectors, its globally diverse population and the worldwide influences on its heritage and contemporary culture.” – Ken Livingstone, first mayor of London

“A compass to navigate in the dark, an A to Z of London’s past, from beggars to kings, from Shakespeare to Dr. Johnson; Bucholz and Ward have created a compelling picture of the Great Wen in all its premodern glory.” – Tim Hitchcock, Professor of Eighteenth-Century History, University of Hertfordshire, Co-Director of Old Bailey Online

by Sheila Skemp

On January 29, 1774, Benjamin Franklin was called to appear before the Privy Council—a select group of the King’s advisors—in an octagonal-shaped room in Whitehall Palace known as the Cockpit. Spurred by jeers and applause from the audience in the Cockpit, Solicitor General Alexander Wedderburn unleashed a withering tirade against Franklin. Though Franklin entered the room as a dutiful servant of the British crown, he left as a budding American Revolutionary. In The Making of a Patriot, renowned Franklin historian Sheila Skemp presents a insightful, lively narrative that goes beyond the traditional Franklin biography—and behind the common myths  —to demonstrate how Franklin’s ultimate decision to support the colonists was by no means a foregone conclusion. In fact, up until the Cockpit ordeal, he was steadfastly committed to achieving “an accommodation of our differences.” The Making of a Patriot also sheds light on the conspiratorial framework within which actors on both sides of the Atlantic moved toward revolution and it highlights how this event ultimately pitted Franklin against his son, suggesting that the Revolution was, in no small part, also a civil war.

Edited by Vivian Ibrahim and Margit Wunsch

This ground-breaking and innovative book examines the influence of charisma on power, authority and nationalism. The authors both apply and challenge Max Weber’s concept of ‘charisma’ and integrate it into a broader discussion of other theoretical models.

Using an interdisciplinary approach, leading international scholars draw on a diverse range of cases to analyse charisma in benign and malignant leaderships, as well as the relationship between the cult of the leader, the adulation of the masses and the extension of individual authority beyond sheer power. They discuss idiosyncratic authority and oratory, and they address how political, social and regional variations help explain concepts and policies which helped forge and reformulate nations, national identities and movements. The chapters on particular charismatic leaders cover Abraham Lincoln, Kemal Atatürk, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Gamal Nasser, Jörg Haider and Nelson Mandela.

REVIEWS

“This rich collection of essays, by leading academics from across the world, examines in critical depth Max Weber’s concept of charismatic leadership in the context of nations. Is charismatic leadership a result of how followers construct the idea of their leader or is it the intrinsic quality of charisma itself? The authors explore the personalities and purposes of leading figures across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and question whether Weber’s concept needs revision, extension or rejection if applied globally.

Here is a collection of essays on the important theme of leadership, nations and charisma, which will be read with immense benefit by those interested in politics, sociology and history.”

– Lord Meghnad Desai, Emeritus Professor at London School of Economics (LSE)

“Margit Wunsch and Vivian Ibrahim have performed a stunning feat. Like an expose of a magician’s tricks, this book opens our eyes by dissecting the charisma of nationalist leaders to reveal its profane sources. Rigorous examinations of psychological phenomena in history and politics are rare, but this book delivers magnificently. The editors explore whether charisma is primarily about psychology, or is produced by social roles and political coercion. They ask if charisma is a cause or merely an effect of success. Authors consider whether charisma can survive in a pluralistic democratic context. They distinguish between situations where cunning leaders project charisma onto the masses and instances when the people bestow it upon their anointed leader. They go on to show how charisma can inhere in entire nations and institutions, not merely in individuals. They ask whether it can change history, and if so, whether it is always a malign force or can it serve democracy well, as Max Weber hoped. Might charisma survive death and be successfully institutionalised? What is the connection between charismatic individuals and heroes, icons or exemplars of national character? Does charisma exhibit a different quality in ‘disenchanted’ mass modernity? In non-western societies? Might Jesus, Muhammad, Joan of Arc and other historical figures exert charisma from beyond the grave, and how do latter-day charismatics appropriate their mantle? Is charisma inherent in charismatic figures or is it ‘made’ by image management, spin, dress and staging? This book offers a sustained analysis of these questions and much more. John Breuilly’s introduction weaves an impressive theoretical account through the embarrassment of riches provided by the book’s star-studded cast. From Hitler and Mussolini to Mandela and Gandhi, FDR and Lincoln to Haider, Napoleon to the Virgin Mary, this book will forever change the way we look at nationalist charisma.”

– Eric Kaufmann, Professor of Politics, Birkbeck College, University of London

By Marc H. Lerner

Looking at a series of Swiss political debates, this book offers a case study of a revolutionary transformation to a rights-based society and political culture. Based on a tradition of political innovation and experimentation, Swiss citizens recalibrated their understanding of liberty and republicanism from 1750 to 1848. The resulting hybrid political culture centered around republican ideas, changing understandings of liberty and self-rule. Drawing from the public political debates in three characteristic cantons, A Laboratory of Liberty places the Swiss transformation into aEuropean context. Current trends in Revolutionary studies focus on the revolution in its global context and this book demonstrates that the Swiss case enhances our understanding of the debates over the nature of liberty in the transatlantic world during the Age of Revolution.

Marc H. Lerner, Ph.D. (2003) in History, Columbia University, has been Assistant Professor of History at the University of Mississippi since 2005. His research interests are focused on revolutionary Europe in comparative perspective, republicanism, democracy and the transition to political modernity.