This sparkling account of the great age of Whiggery during the reigns of George I and II is distinguished by its attention to social history. The author deftly explains how the political transformation which brought an end to the âeoerage of partyâe under Queen Anne and ushered in the âeoestrife of factionâe under the Hanoverians was related to social and economic conditions. This major political change brought stability to England andâe"by important, though incremental shifts in mobility, religion, agriculture, industry, and literacyâe"slowly transformed English society. W. A. Speck argues that in 1714 England was ruled by rival elites called Tory and Whig and that by 1760 they had fused to form a ruling class. This union became possible as divisive issues faded and economic and political interests were shared. Whiggery itself, however, split apart for lesser reasons. âeoeCountryâe Whigs were restorationists on moral and religious grounds while âeoeCourtâe Whigsâe"neither Saints, nor Spartans, nor Reformersâe"created the mechanisms to realize the promise of the Glorious Revolution of 1689: mixed monarchy, property and liberty, and Protestantism. Stability and Strife is the most up-to-date book in English eighteenth-century history in its methodsâe"the use of social science data and literary sourcesâe"and in its sophisticated topical and narrative approaches to this fascinating era.
The story behind the attack that shocked a nation and opened a new chapter in the history of American crime. On July 14th, 1966, Richard Franklin Speck swept through several student nurses’ townhouse like a summer tornado and changed the landscape of American crime. He broke in as his helpless victims slept, bound them one by one, and then stabbed, assaulted, and strangled all eight in a sadistic sexual frenzy. By morning, only one young nurse had miraculously survived. The killer was captured in seventy-two hours; he was successfully prosecuted in an error-free trial that stood up to appellate scrutiny; and the jury needed only forty-nine minutes to return a death verdict. Here is the story of Richard Speck by the prosecutor who put him in prison for life with a brand new introduction by Bill Kunkle, the prosecutor of the infamous John Wayne Gacy Jr. In The Crime of the Century, William J. Martin has teamed up with Dennis L. Breo to re-create the blood-soaked night that made American criminal history, offering fascinating behind-the-scenes descriptions of Speck, his innocent victims, the desperate manhunt and massive investigation, and the trial that led to Speck’s successful conviction.
On the 250th anniversary of the Jacobite Rebellion The Butcher, in a new paperback edition, deals with the response to the '45. Where there have been several studies of the uprising from the point of view of the rebels, few have approached it from that of the government and its supporters. When roused from the initial reluctance to take the rising seriously, supporters of the Hanoverian dynasty rallied to its defence and exposed adherents of the Stuarts as a small minority not only in England but even in Scotland. The result was to revenge the spectacular earlier successes of the Young Pretender's forces in the crushing defeat at Culloden. Cumberland's determination that there would not be a third rebellion to add to the '15 and '45 rightly earned him the title of "The Butcher".
Features the full text of "His Books," a poem written by English author Robert Southey (1774-1843). The poem is provided online by Bibliomania.com Ltd. from the print version of "The Oxford Book of English Verse 1900.
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