A County Community in Peace and War

📖 The Scoop

"A County Community in Peace and War appears at a time when there is an exceptional interest in the local dimension of the Great Rebellion, and a general recognition that county studies offer a significant contribution to our fuller understanding of it. The book is the most comprehensive study yet attempted of an English county community during the period from 1600 to 1660 in all aspects of its life. By giving detailed attention to a limited area, the book brings into sharp focus the national concerns of historians of the seventeenth century, and vividly illuminates the general problems and processes which the period presents. There are frequent comparisons with other counties throughout the book, and, whether in any specific aspect Sussex is a typical country or not, the conclusions which emerge have an importance and a relevance which transcend the particular history of the county itself. The scene is set with an account of the social and economic life of the gentry. In the following section, on religion, the religious experience of both Protestants and Catholics is discussed, and there is a detailed study of the enforcement of Arminianism in the 1630s, a topic on which very little research at local level has yet been done. The book then moves on to its main theme: an analysis of the impact of the Great Rebellion on the county community. It shows in detail how local issues interacted with national ones to shape provincial politics. The strains in the relationship between the county leaders and the London governments across the whole period are illustrated in a series of case studies. Some of these studies (for instance, those on the Exact Militia and the County Committee) afford interesting comparisons with parallel published work on other counties; they provide additional material for testing generalisations about the Great Rebellion. Others, such as the sections on taxation and wrecking, break new ground by their attempts to assess the continuity in the local response to administrative issues during a period of national upheaval. This is an important and fascinating book. It presents to the historian and student of the Great Rebellion a mass of new material at both national and local level to test their assumptions and deepen their understanding of the period; the book will be equally welcomed, and enjoyed, by those with a serious interest in social and local history as such. And, of course, it will be essential reading for anyone who cares about the history of Sussex itself."-Publisher.

Genre: History / Europe / Great Britain / General (fancy, right?)