Representation and Misrepresentation in Later Stuart Britain : Partisanship and Political Culture.
Material type: TextPublisher: Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2004Copyright date: ©2005Description: 1 online resource (448 pages)Content type: text Media type: computer Carrier type: online resourceISBN: 9780191514562Subject(s): Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1660-1714 | Political culture -- Great Britain -- History -- 17th century | Political parties -- Great Britain -- History -- 17th century | Politics and literature -- Great Britain -- History -- 17th century | Public opinion -- Great Britain -- History -- 17th century | Representative government and representation -- Great Britain -- History -- 17th centuryGenre/Form: Electronic books.Additional physical formats: Print version:: Representation and Misrepresentation in Later Stuart Britain : Partisanship and Political CultureDDC classification: 941.06 LOC classification: DA435 -- .K69 2005ebOnline resources: Click to ViewIntro -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Abbreviations -- Author's Note on Conventions -- Chronology of National Events -- PART I. REPRESENTATION AND THE PUBLIC -- 1. Introduction -- The Argument -- Five Factors for Change -- An Evolving Political Culture -- The Problem of Representation -- Context and Methodology -- Conclusion -- 2. Public Politics -- Politics as Public Dialogue: Representative Practices in Hertford -- Representative Politics in Cheshire -- The Public and the People -- 3. Petitions and Addresses -- The Public Dialogue within the State -- Mapping the Pattern of Petitions and Addresses over Time -- The Nature of the Campaigns -- Establishing the Right to Petition and Address -- Widening the Political Nation and Invoking Popular Opinion -- Petitioning and Addressing as Partisan Tools -- Petitions and Addresses in Print: Reason, Nationalism, and Politeness -- Addressing and Associating: Professions of Loyalty -- The Vagaries of Petitions and Addresses: The Giddy People -- Summary -- 4. Informing Public Judgement at the Polls -- Printed Electoral Advice: A New Genre -- The Paradox of the Rational Voter -- Countering Interest -- Representation and Participation -- The Printed List of MPs and the Partisan Framing of Information -- Representatives or Delegates? -- The Danger of Appeals to the People -- Conclusion -- PART II. PUBLIC DISCOURSE AND TRUTH -- Introduction -- 5. The Evolution of Print Culture and the Libels of Public Discourse -- Innovations in Print -- The Impact of Print -- Partisan Print and Adversarial Politics -- Coffee-House and Club Discourse -- A Culture of Public Libel at Elections -- A Free Press: Help or Hindrance to Public Judgement? -- 6. Truth and Fiction in the Age of Party -- The Problem of Truth -- The Dangerous Arts and Artifices of Political Language -- The Fictions of Partisan Politics -- Summary.
7. Consequences -- The Ideal Political Culture -- The Repeal of the Triennial Act -- A Representative Public: A Tory Perspective -- Appendix: The Principal Periodicals in the Reign of Queen Anne -- Select Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y.
This book argues that the period from 1675 was the second stage of a 17th-century revolution that ran on until 1720. It traces the development of the public as an arbiter of politics, the growth of a national political culture, the shift towards a representative society, and a political enlightenment rooted in local and national partisan conflict. - ;In this original and illuminating new study, Mark Knights reveals how the political culture of the eighteenth century grew out of earlier trends and innovations. Arguing that the period from 1675 needs to be seen as the second stage of a seventeenth-century revolution that ran on until c.1720, Representation and Misrepresentation in Later Stuart Britain charts the growth of a national political culture and traces the development of the public as an arbiter of. politics. In doing so, it uncovers a crisis of public discourse and credibility, and finds a political enlightenment rooted in local and national partisan conflict. The later Stuart period was characterized by frequent elections, the lapse of pre-publication licensing, the emergence of party politics, the creation of a public debt, and ideological conflict over popular sovereignty. These factors combined to enhance the status of the 'public', not least in requiring it to make numerous acts of judgement. Contemporaries from across the political spectrum feared that the public might be misled by the misrepresentations pedalled by their rivals. Each side, and. those ostensibly of no side, discerned a culture of passion, slander, libel, lies, hypocrisy, dissimulation, conspiracy, private languages, and fictions. 'Truth' appeared an ambiguous, political matter. Yet the reaction to partisanship was also creative, for it helped to construct an ideal form of. political discourse. This was one based on reason rather than passion, on moderation rather
than partisan zeal, on critical reading rather than credulity; and an increasing realization that these virtues arose from infrequent rather than frequent elections. Finding synergies between social, political, religious, scientific, literary, cultural, and intellectual history, Representation and Misrepresentation in Later Stuart Britain reinvigorates the debate about the emergence of 'the public sphere' in the later Stuart period. - ;Mark Knights brilliantly shows a new way of considering later-Stuart politics ... a book of exceptional depth and originality which all historians of the period ought to explore. - Julian Hoppit, English Historical Review.
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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2018. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
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