This celebrated collection of essays was first published in 1961 to mark the 80th birthday of the great historian and social reformer R. H. Tawney. The list of contributors contains several of the most English distinguished historians of the post-war period, including Lawrence Stone, Christopher Hill, Joan Thirsk, Gerald Aylmer and Donald Coleman, and many of the essays in this volume have since assumed classic status. The collection opens with F. J. Fisher's celebrated overview of 'Tawney's Century', defined as that period which separates the Dissolution of the Monasteries of the 1530s from the Great Rebellion of the 1640s.

Originally published in 1977, this book investigates the controversial question as to whether England has seen two industrial revolutions, whether economic changes in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in England deserve to be distinguished as a period in which an economic ‘revolution’ nearly took place, but eventually aborted. The book considers the changes that took place in the most important industries in the period and estimates the significance of these changes for the overall structure of the English economy. It also assesses the attitudes of the various historians involved in the debate and the nature of the evidence on which their arguments have been based. The combination of critical assessment in the introduction and the evidence of the 34 original documents will guarantee a wide readership of the book among students and teachers of economic history.