Remapping Early Modern England

It is now over twenty years since revisionist history began to transform our understanding of early modern England. In Remapping Early Modern England Kevin Sharpe proposes a new cultural turn in the study of the English Renaissance state. In contrast to the narrow definitions and debates of both revisionist and postrevisionist historians, he urges a broader interdisciplinary approach to the texts of authority, their performance and reception. This collection will help refigure our understanding of the history and politics of the period and the materials and methods of its study.

A collection of new and previously-published essays on the culture of the English Renaissance state.

Explores the publication and reception of authority in early modern England.

A Short History of Early Modern England presents the historical and cultural information necessary for a richer understanding of English Renaissance literature. Written in a clear and accessible style for an undergraduate level audience Gives an overview of the period’s history as well as an understanding of the historiographic issues Explores key historical and literary events, from the Wars of the Roses to the publication of John Milton’s Paradise Regained Features in depth explanations of key terms and concepts, such as absolutism and the Elizabethan Settlement

This is a detailed 2002 study of the political significance of the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, 1613.

This richly illustrated and interdisciplinary study examines the commercial mediation of royalism through print and visual culture from the second half of the seventeenth century. The rapidly growing marketplace of books, periodicals, pictures, and material objects brought the spectacle of monarchy to a wide audience, saturating spaces of daily life in later Stuart and early Hanoverian England. Images of the royal family, including portrait engravings, graphic satires, illustrations, medals and miniatures, urban signs, playing cards, and coronation ceramics were fundamental components of the political landscape and the emergent public sphere. Koscak considers the affective subjectivities made possible by loyalist commodities; how texts and images responded to anxieties about representation at moments of political uncertainty; and how individuals decorated, displayed, and interacted with pictures of rulers. Despite the fractious nature of party politics and the appropriation of royal representations for partisan and commercial ends, print media, images, and objects materialized emotional bonds between sovereigns and subjects as the basis of allegiance and obedience. They were read and re-read, collected and exchanged, kept in pockets and pasted to walls, and looked upon as repositories of personal memory, national history, and political reverence.

This book charts the changes in reading habits that reflect broader social and political shifts in early modern England.

Placing the reading of history in its cultural and educational context, and examining the processes by which ideas about ancient Rome circulated, this study provides the first assessment of the significance of Roman history, broadly conceived, in early modern England.