Political and Popular Culture in the Early Modern Period

Series Editors: Alastair Bellany, Krista Kesselring, Jason Peacey and Edward Vallance

The early modern period is widely recognised as being of profound historical importance. It encompassed upheavals in church, state, politics and society, and it spans the transition from baronial wars to constitutional monarchy, and from feudal society to the emergence of the ‘fiscal military state’ and commercial society. Internationally, it witnessed confessional wars and tensions over trade and empire, as Britain and its European neighbours expanded into the Atlantic world.

As recent scholarship has demonstrated, however, the early modern period cannot be sufficiently understood and analysed merely through the pursuit of political, social, religious, intellectual, or economic history as isolated disciplines. Historians have increasingly come to recognise the need, in other words, for an interdisciplinary approach, and one particularly important outcome has been the development of ‘political culture’ as an area of enquiry. Political culture encompasses more than merely the narrative of high politics, and can be defined as the beliefs, ideas and attitudes regarding the way in which countries were or ought to be governed, as well as those factors which influenced the ways in which governmental processes were carried out, and the ways in which such processes developed over time. As such, scholars of political culture recognise the importance of economics, society, culture and religion, and of any place or arena in which political power was either discussed or displayed. They value, in short, analysis of any aspect of early modern society which sheds light upon the ways in which political life was undertaken and was perceived to operate; which impacted upon political process and proceedings; and which provoked change in the ways in which political life was lived.

Political culture can involve any number of issues, themes and disciplinary approaches. It might encompass not merely analysis of contemporary discussions regarding power and politics, but also studies relating to the politics of public space, the politics of information, and the politics of participation, not to mention political iconography, symbolism, and display. It might involve the extension of scholarly analysis beyond the focal points for national politics and into the regions, in terms of both urban and rural politics, and the interaction between centre and locality. It might also explore connections between elite and popular politics, and the political aspects of popular culture, as well as the ways in which literature (both popular and scholarly) reflected and influenced political life and public debate. A particularly fruitful area of recent research has explored the impact of print culture, not least in terms of the emergence of newspapers and popular polemic, and the ways in which the press was manipulated and exploited by various groups within society. Not the least of the factors which might be explored are those relating nations with each other and with other continents, in order to explore the impact of international relations, trade, and confessional tensions.

The aim of this series, therefore, is to explore political life during the early modern period in all of its complexity and subtlety, exploring any aspect of social, economic, religious, and intellectual life which can be shown to have shed light upon political life and the ways in which it developed.

Submissions are invited from individuals who have recently complete PhD theses, as well as postdoctoral students and established scholars, and proposals should be sent (in hard copy and by electronic attachment) to one of the series editors: Dr Jason Peacey, Department of History, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT (jtpeacey@yahoo.co.uk); Dr Alastair Bellany, Department of History, Rutgers University, 111 Van Dyck Hall, 16 Seminary Place, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA (bellany@rci.rutgers.edu); Dr Ted Vallance, School of History, University of Liverpool, 9 Abercromby Square, Liverpool, L69 7WZ (Ted.Vallance@liverpool.ac.uk); Dr Krista Kesselring, Department of History, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3H 4P9, Canada (krista.kesselring@dal.ca).

The editors will require a detailed proposal of at least 8–10 pages (including chapter outlines), along with the text of a sample chapter. Contracts will be offered to the most promising authors on this basis.

Readership

The chief audience for these works will be scholars and advanced students of early modern Britain and Europe, and the libraries which serve them. Since these studies will be interdisciplinary in nature, however, it is expected that they will appeal to readers beyond a narrow range of historians, and that they will also appeal to those whose primary focus is early modern literature, religion, and even art history. Since it is envisaged that these books will help to develop new methodological insights and approaches, however, it it also hoped that they will draw attention from scholars working outside the early modern period.

Editorial board

Alastair Bellany is Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University. His major publications include The Politics of Court Scandal In Early Modern England: News Culture and the Overbury Affair, 1603-1660 (2002), and a co-edited online database entitled Early Stuart Libels: An Edition of Poetry from Manuscript Sources (2005)

Jason Peacey is Lecturer in History at University College London. He is editor of The Regicides and the Execution of Charles I (2001), co-editor of Parliament at Work (2002), and author of Politicians and Pamphleteers. Propaganda in the Civil Wars and Interregnum (2004). He is currently preparing a monograph entitled Print Culture and Political Participation in Britain, 1640-1660.

Krista Kesselring is Associate Professor of History at Dalhousie University. She is the author of Mercy and Authority in the Tudor State (2003), and has recently completed a manuscript entitled The Northern Rebellion of 1569: Faith, Politics, and Protest in Elizabethan England.

Edward Vallance is Lecturer in Early Modern British History at Liverpool University. He is the author of Revolutionary England and the National Covenant: State Oaths Protestantism and the Political Nation (2005), The Glorious Revolution: 1688 and Britain's Fight for Liberty (2006), and co-editor of Contexts of Conscience in Early Modern Europe (2003).

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