Full Description
How were cultural, political and social identities formed in the early modern period? How were they maintained and what happened when they were contested? "Community" has suffered from a problem intrinsic to historical analysis; the tensions between its past and current meanings. Divided into three parts this book looks first at community and networks - how individuals were bound into communities by religious, professional and social networks. The second part looks at the importance of place - ranging from the Parish, to communities of crime, to the place of political culture. Finally the authors explore the value of rhetoric in generating community - from the King's English to the use of "public" as a rhetorical community.
Contents
Part 1 Networkstransactions of Sir Stephen Powle; defensive tactics - networking by female medical practitioners in early modern London; William Blundell and the networks of Catholic dissent in post-Reformation England; social networks in Restoration London - the evidence from Samuel Pepys' diary. Part 2 Place: a sense of place? - becoming and belonging in the rural parish, 1550-1650; overlapping circles - imagining criminal communities in London, 1545-1645; citizens, community and political culture in Restoration England; from a "light cloak" to the "iron cage" - an essay on historical changes in the relationship between community and individualism. Part 3 Rhetoric: rhetorical constructions of a national community - the role of the King's English in mid-Tudor writing; the "public" as a rhetorical community in early modern England; contesting communities? - town and gown in Cambridge, c.1560-1640; readers, correspondents and communities - John Houghton's "A collection for improvement of husbandrry and trade" (1692-1703).
