Gentry Rhetoric

Gentry Rhetoric examines the full range of influences on the Elizabethan and Jacobean genteel classes’ practice of English rhetoric in daily life. Daniel Ellis surveys how the gentry of late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Norfolk wrote to and negotiated with each other by employing Renaissance humanist rhetoric, both to solidify their identity and authority in resisting absolutism and authoritarianism, and to transform the political and social state. The rhetorical training that formed the basis of their formal education was one obvious influence. Yet to focus on this training exclusively allows only a limited understanding of the way this class developed the strategies that enabled them to negotiate, argue, and conciliate with one another to such an extent that they could both form themselves as a coherent entity and become the primary shapers of written English’s style, arrangement, and invention. Gentry Rhetoric deeply and inductively examines archival materials in which members of the gentry discuss, debate, and negotiate matters relating to their class interests and political aspirations. Humanist rhetoric provided the bedrock of address, argumentation, and negotiation that allowed the gentry to instigate a political and educational revolution in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England.

The “meticulously researched, elegantly argued and deeply humane” sequel to the landmark volume of social history, The Making of the English Working Class (The New York Times Book Review). This remarkable study investigates the gradual disappearance of a range of cultural customs against the backdrop of the great upheavals of the eighteenth century. As villagers were subjected to a legal system increasingly hostile to custom, they tried both to resist and to preserve tradition, becoming, as E. P. Thompson explains, “rebellious, but rebellious in defense of custom.” Although some historians have written of riotous peasants of England and Wales as if they were mainly a problem for magistrates and governments, for Thompson it is the rulers, landowners, and governments who were a problem for the people, whose exuberant culture preceded the formation of working-class institutions and consciousness. Essential reading for all those intrigued by English history, Customs in Common has a special relevance today, as traditional economies are being replaced by market economies throughout the world. The rich scholarship and depth of insight in Thompson’s work offer many clues to understanding contemporary changes around the globe. “[This] long-awaited collection . . . is a signal contribution . . . [from] the person most responsible for inspiring the revival of American labor history during the past thirty years.” —The Nation “This book signals the return to historical writing of one of the most eloquent, powerful and independent voices of our time. At his best he is capable of a passionate, sardonic eloquence which is unequalled.” —The Observer

Vietnam and the World is a comprehensive book on Vietnam's international relations since 1975. It is also a study on the development of Marxist-Leninist doctrine in Vietnam. With its special reference to foreign policy, the book examines how formalist Marxist-Leninist rhetoric penetrated traditional pragmatically oriented Vietnamese thinking. By using previously unexploited Vietnamese material, the author pinpoints the development of Vietnamese doctrine vis-a-vis pragmatism and formalism and analyzes the line pursued by Vietnam during the radical changes in international relation between 1975 and 1993.

In The Roots of Democracy Robert E. Shalhope traces the dramatic shifts in attitudes and behavior from before the Revolution, through the war itself, and then on to the confederation period, the creation of republican governments, the making of the Constitution and the conflicts of the 1790s.

This is an exploration the intellectual consequences of one of the most fundamental shifts in late medieval English society: the first national labour regulation in the wake of the 1348 plague. Bridging the medieval and early modern periods, this book analyzes a wide range of texts and images produced in this initial period of labour regulation.

In The Origin of Capitalism in England, 1400-1600, Spencer Dimmock has produced a challenging and multi-layered account of a historical rupture in English feudal society which led to the first sustained transition to agrarian capitalism and consequent industrial revolution.

First published in 1988, David Aers explores the treatment of community, gender, and individual identity in English writing between 1360 and 1430, focusing on Margery Kempe, Langland, Chaucer, and the poet of Sir Gawain. He shows how these texts deal with questions about gender, the making of individual identity, and competing versions of community in ways which still speak powerfully in contemporary analysis of gender formation, sexuality, and love. Making wide use of recent research on the English economy and communities, and informed by current debates in the theory of culture and gender, the book will be of interest to those concerned with Medieval studies, Renaissance studies, and Women’s studies.

American Literary Studies: A Methodological Reader gathers together leading scholars of American literature to address the questions of methodology that have invigorated and divided their field: the rise of interdisciplinarity and the wealth of theoretical methods now available to the critic of American literature. Their engagement with these issues takes a unique form in this book: Each scholar has chosen a methodologically innovative essay, which he or she then introduces, explaining why it is both exemplary in its approach and central to the issues that most engage American literary scholarship today. The book includes both an introduction to the controversial interdisciplinary methods that have made American literary studies such a vibrant field, as well as groundbreaking scholarship on topics as diverse as James Fenimore Cooper, minstrel songs, and Lakota Indian stories. This volume has been designed to serve as a starting point for teachers and students to explore the fundamental questions of American literary scholarship: What does "method" mean in literary studies? Which texts should it study? What makes literary study unique? What should literary scholarship do? American Literary Studies argues that these questions can only be answered through a discussion of the interdisciplinary methods currently in use by scholars today. Finally, an original introduction by Michael A. Elliott and Claudia Stokes explains why questions of method are crucial to American literary studies and how past scholars of American literature have tried to answer them. Contributors include: Lauren Berlant, Russ Castronovo, Wai Chee Dimock, Ann duCille, Michael A. Elliott, Frances Smith Foster, Elaine A. Jahner, Rob Kroes, Arnold Krupat, Paul Lauter, Marilee Lindemann, W. T. Lhamon, Jr., Christopher J. Looby, David Palumbo-Liu, Roy Harvey Pearce, Lora Romero, Ramón Saldívar, Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, Werner Sollors, Claudia Stokes, Claudia Tate, Paula A. Treichler, Priscilla Wald, Michael Warner, Laura Wexler, Sau-ling C. Wong