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Featured book in
History is :
A Social History of England by Asa Briggs, Provost of Worcester College, Oxford and President of
the English Social History Society and Chairman of the Heritage
Education Group and past Chairman of the Standing Conference on the
Study of Local History
About this book
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The study of social history has changed profoundly since Trevelyan's
English Social History was published in 1942. The conception
and scope of the subject, the range of source material available and
the experience of the historians involved are all much wider.
English society itself has undergone many changes, too, and
historical perspectives have shifted accordingly. As Asa Briggs
writes in the preface to this book, "The time is ripe for a
preliminary attempt at a new synthesis difficult though the task may
be." |
| In
constructing that synthesis, he ranges widely over time and place,
highlighting |
| continuities and changes. Where Trevelyan's history opened with
Chaucer's England and |
| closed
with the Second World War, A Social History
of England stretches from prehistory |
| to the
present. Asa Briggs explores the rich diversity of English society
and seeks to explain |
|
what was happening outside, as
well as in, London throughout the ages, placing the |
|
emphasis on human experience
rather than concepts, and on its expression in literature and |
| art,
politics and social change. The importance of recent research in
related disciplines and |
| of
changes in historical interpretation are explained within the lively
and accessible |
| narrative, but the reader is also offered the author's own, often
highly personal, view of |
| social
history. |
| The
text is complemented by over 300 illustrations, including 37 colour
plates and a series |
| of
historical maps. They are explanatory rather than descriptive,
highlighting certain themes |
| pictorially, and form an integral part of the narrative. |
| This
major work by one of Britain's foremost historians, designed for
both students and |
| general readers, brings alive one of today's most popular and
exciting branches of history. |
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