For both contemporaries and later historians the Industrial Revolution is viewed as a turning point' in modern British history. There is no doubt that change occurred, but what was the nature of that change and how did affect rural and urban society? Beginning with an examination of the nature of history and Britain in 1700, this volume focuses on the economic and social aspects of the Industrial Revolution. Unlike many previous textbooks on the same period, it emphasizes British history, and deals with developments in Wales, Scotland, and Ireland in their own right. It is the emphasis on the diversity, not the uniformity of experience, on continuities as well as change in this crucial period of development, which makes this volume distinctive. In his companion title Richard Brown completes his examination of the period and looks at the changes that took place in Britain's political system and in its religious affiliations.

Whilst in certain quarters it may be fashionable to suppose that there is no such thing as society historians, they have had no difficulty in finding their subject. The difficulty, rather, is that an outpouring of research and writing is hard for anyone but the specialist to keep up with the literature or grasp the overall picture. In these three volumes, as is the tradition in Cambridge Histories, a team of specialists has assembled the jigsaw of topical monographic research and presented an interpretation of the development of modern British society since 1750, from three perspectives: those of regional communities, the working and living environment, and social institutions. Each volume is self-contained, and each contribution, thematically defined, contains its own chronology of the period under review. Taken as a whole they offer an authoritative and comprehensive view of the manner and method of the shaping of society in the two centuries of unprecedented demographic and economic change.

In this, the second edition of A Social History of England, Francois Bédarida has added a new final chapter on the last fifteen years. The book now traces the evolution of English society from the height of the British Empire to the dawn of the single European market. Making full use of the Annales school of French historiography, Bédarida takes his inquiry beyond conventional views to penetrate the attitudes, behaviour and psychology of the British people.

This fully revised and updated new edition, extended to cover the period up to 1914, provides the ultimate introduction to British history between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the outbreak of the First World War.

An introductory text on economic development during Britain's Industrial Revolution. It considers the significance and scale of changes and provides a concise overview of the state of current research on this key period.