Unshackling America challenges the persistent fallacy that Americans fought two separate wars of independence. Williard Sterne Randall documents an unremitting fifty-year-long struggle for economic independence from Britain overlapping two armed conflicts linked by an unacknowledged global struggle. Throughout this perilous period, the struggle was all about free trade. Neither Jefferson nor any other Founding Father could divine that the Revolutionary Period of 1763 to 1783 had concluded only one part, the first phase of their ordeal. The Treaty of Paris of 1783 at the end of the Revolutionary War halted overt combat but had achieved only partial political autonomy from Britain. By not guaranteeing American economic independence and agency, Britain continued to deny American sovereignty. Randall details the fifty years and persistent attempts by the British to control American trade waters, but he also shows how, despite the outrageous restrictions, the United States asserted the doctrine of neutral rights and developed the world’s second largest merchant fleet as it absorbed the French Caribbean trade. American ships carrying trade increased five-fold between 1790 and 1800, its tonnage nearly doubling again between 1800 and 1812, ultimately making the United States the world’s largest independent maritime power.
Critics and scholars have long argued that the Renaissance was the period that gave rise to the modern individual. The Gargantuan Polity examines political, legal, theological, and literary texts in the late Middle Ages, to show how individuals were defined by contracts of mutual obligation, which allowed rulers to hold power due to approval of their subjects. Noting how the relationship between rulers and individuals changed with the rise of absolute monarchy, Michael Randall provides significant insight into Renaissance culture and politics by showing how individuals went from being understood in terms of their objective relations with the community to subjective beings. By studying this evolution, he challenges the argument that subjectivity enabled modern political autonomy to come into existence, and instead argues that subjectivity might have disempowered the outwardly directed and highly political individuals of the late Middle Ages. A profound and detailed study of one of the most drastic periods of change, The Gargantuan Polity will be of interest to scholars of French literature, the Renaissance, and intellectual history.
Elizabethan and early Stuart England saw the prevailing medium for transmitting military news shift from public ritual, through private letters, to public newspapers. This study is based on an examination of hundreds of manuscript news letters, printed pamphlets and corantos, and news diaries which are in holdings in the US and the UK.
The Franco-Flemish region of medieval Flanders was a locus of important trade routes in the 13th and 14th centuries. Located in a prime position between the Holy Roman Empire and the North Sea (present-day northern Belgium), the urban centers of the region were surpassed in population only by the city-states of central and northern Italy. This positioning afforded the Flemish citizens of the region great prosperity and they formed guilds to protect their rights, regulate their working hours and standardize their wages. These guilds produced a cohesive unit of people eager to retain the rights they had gained. In 1302, French cavalry faced the determined Flemish soldiers on foot at Kortrijk (Courtrai). This book analyzes the battle that ensued, its origins, consequences and legacy. It also examines the everyday lives of the inhabitants of Flanders; urban dwellers, knights, nobles, women and others. This is the first major English-language study of the historic 14th century battle between the French and the Flemish, a conflict whose repercussions linger in modern Belgium. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.
This little book explores the Severn Valley and the places the railway passes through from Worcester to Shrewsbury as it was in 1863. The Severn, like other English rivers, may be said to have been a railway pioneer in having one built along its banks: first, in having done much to correct the inequalities of the surface; secondly, in having indicated the direction in which the traffic flowed; so that early in the history of railway enterprise eminent engineers, like the late Robert Stephenson, saw the desirability of following its course, and thus meeting the wants of towns that had grown into importance upon its banks. In 1846 the route was finally surveyed by Robert Nicholson, with a view to a through traffic in connection with other railways. The scheme met with opposition from advocates of rival lines. Ultimately, however, the Bill passed the committees of the two Houses, and the promoters were successful, whilst the expenses of counsel and witnesses were enormous. The original estimate for the line was £600,000: £110,000 for land, and £490,000 for works. £8,500 was down for a girder bridge at Arley,£8,000 for one near Quatford, £9,000 for one above Bridgnorth, and £10,000 for one at Shrewsbury. The two bridges near Bridgnorth and the one near Shrewsbury were abandoned, and a considerable saving was effected by shortening the line at Hartlebury, by a junction, with the Oxford, Wolverhampton, and Worcester higher up than was originally intended. The estimated cost of the works, in consequence of these reductions, and of the determination of the company to make it a single line, was thus reduced to nearly one-half the original sum. Although the Severn Valley Railway joins the Main Trunk line at Hartlebury, Worcester is regarded as its proper terminus; and at that point we commence our description, 10% of the publisher’s profit from the sale of this book will be donated to UNICEF. ======= KEYWORDS/TAGS: Handbook, severn valley railway, Abberley, Abbey, Alveley, ancient, Apley, arches, architecture, Arley, Astley, Baxter, Bayliffs, Beauchamp, Bell-flower, Benthall, Berkeley, Berrington, Bewdley, botany, bridge, Bridge, Bridgnorth, Bristol, British Railway, Brycge, building, built, Burlish, canal, Caradoc, carboniferous, carp, Castle, castle rocks, Cathedral, Caughley, century, chapter-house, Charles, church, churchyard, city, Coalbrookdale, Coalport, Conqueror, Constantine, construct, cottages, Cound, countryside, Court, Coventry, Cressage, Danes, daughter, dilapidated, distance, Droitwich, Duke, Eardington, Earl, eastern, Edward, Elizabethan, embankment, England, erect, Esquire, Ethelfleda, Ethelwald, existence, famous, first, Fitz-Alan, Ford, Foregate, Forest, founded, George Stevenson, Gloucester, Hall, Hampton, handsome, Hartlebury, Haughmond, Henry, Hereford, Hermitage, Highley, Hills, His Eminence, Ironbridge, John, King, kingdom, knight, Leland, lines, London, Lord, machinery, Madeley, manufacture, Market, Milburgh, miles, monastery, monks, moonlight, nature, Norman, Oxford, Padmore, parish, Parliamentary, Pembroke, picturesque, Plinlimmon, Prince, Quatford, Queen, railway, relics, remains, rich, Richard, Roman, royal, ruins, Salwarp, Sandstone, Saxon, sedilia, Severn river, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, solid, station, Stour, Stourport, structure, summit, sylvan, tankard, timbers, tower, town, Townhall, trout, upper towne, Uriconium, valley, villages, Wales, Wenlock, William, winds, Wolfe, woods, Worcester, Wrekin, Wribbenhall, Wroxeter
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