European Society In The Eighteenth Century

This collection of essays explores the emergence of economic societies in the British Isles and their development into a European, American and global reform movement in the eighteenth century. Its fourteen contributions demonstrate the intellectual horizons and international networks of this widespread and influential phenomenon.

Drawing together common features of society from a range of different contexts throughout Europe, from Italy and Spain to Poland and Russia, Early Modern European Society surveys the sweeping changes affecting Europe from the end of the fifteenth century to the early decades of the eighteenth century. Henry Kamen includes discussion on: European identities, frontiers and language leisure, work and migration religion, ritual and witchcraft the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie and the poor gender roles social discipline and absolutism.

Of the great European institutions of the Old Regime, the Catholic Church alone survived into the modern world. The Church that emerged from the period of revolutionary upheaval, which began in 1789, and from the long process of economic and social transformation characteristic of the nineteenth century, was very different from the great baroque Church that developed following the Counter-Reformation. These studies of the Church in France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germane, Austria, Hungary and Poland on the eve of an era of revolutionary change assess the still intimate relationship between religion and society within the traditional European social order of the eighteenth century. The essays emphasize social function rather than theological controversy, and examine issues such as the recruitment and role of the clergy, the place of the Church in education and poor relief', the importance of popular religion, and the evangelization of a largely illiterate population by the religious orders.

The position of the nobility depended on a stable world which accepted their authority: but, in the eighteenth century, that world was becoming increasingly fractured as a result of social and economic developments and new ideas. Since nobles were, in economic terms, an extremely disparate group, ranging from the near destitute to the unimaginably wealthy, how could this ruling class preserve a coherent identity? Was wealth more important than birth or education? How should wealth be retained or accumulated? And what role did women play in shoring up noble pre-eminence? In this wide-ranging study, Jerzy Lukowski addresses these issues, and shows the pressures and tensions - both from governments and from the lower orders - which challenged traditional ruling groups in Europe during the century before the French Revolution. Lukowski explains the basic mechanisms of noble existence and examines how the European aristocracy sought to maintain a sense of solidarity in the midst of widespread change.

For 1st and 2nd year undergraduate courses in Modern European History in departments of history. Also, higher level courses on enlightenment.This book provides a wide-ranging account and discussion of the history of Europe from 1713-1789. As well as political events, problems and institutions, it looks at the economic life of the continent, social structures and problems and intellectual and religious life. It also covers all aspects of Europe's relations with the rest of the world during a key period in European history.

The complete Short Oxford History of Europe (series editor: Professor T.C.W. Blanning) will cover the history of Europe from Classical Greece to the present in eleven volumes. In each, experts write to their strengths tackling the key issues including society, economy, religion, politics,and culture head-on in chapters that will be at once wide-ranging surveys and searching analyses. Each book is specifically designed with the non-specialist reader in mind; but the authority of the contributors and the vigour of the interpretations will make them necessary and challenging readingfor fellow academics across a range of disciplines.The word which best summarizes the wonderful variety of human experience in the eighteenth century is `expansion'. The size of armies, literacy rates, state intervention, the acreage of overseas empires, productivity or just the number of Europeans on the planet were all significantly higher in1800 than in 1700. It is the century which forms the hinge between the old world and the new for, by its end, change was not only detectable, it was also seen to be irreversible. In this book, six experts analyse concisely and incisively the major developments in politics, society, the economy,religion and culture, warfare and international relations, and in Europe's relations with the world overseas.