Investigates the contract sector of the British Army during the long eighteenth century. This book argues that this group of financiers, private merchants, businessmen and farmers represented a vital interest group which was at the nexus of the fiscal-military structure. It draws on papers from the War Office, the Treasury and the Audit Office.

Annotation Olson (history, U. of Maryland) argues that, until the eve of the revolution, the British crown could rule its American colonies peacefully with so few administrators because an extensive network of voluntary interest groups, tying the colonies and London, allowed colonists a measure of influence over the central government. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Nowadays remembered mostly through Adam Smith’s references to the short-lived Ayr Bank in the Wealth of Nations, the 1772-3 financial crisis was an important historical episode in its own right, taking place during a pivotal period in the development of financial capitalism and coinciding with the start of the traditional industrialisation narrative. It was also one of the earliest purely financial crises occurring in peacetime, and its progress showed an impressive geographical reach, involving England, Scotland, the Netherlands and the North American colonies. This book uses a variety of previously unpublished archival sources to question the bubble narrative usually associated with this crisis, and to identify the mechanisms of financial contagion that allowed the failure of a small private bank in London to cause rapid and severe distress throughout the 18th century financial system. It re-examines the short and turbulent career of the Ayr Bank, and concludes that its failure was the result of cavalier liability management akin to that of Northern Rock in 2007, rather than the poor asset quality alleged in existing literature. It furthermore argues that the Bank of England’s prompt efforts to contain the crisis are evidence of a Lender of Last Resort in action, some thirty years before the classical formulation of the concept by Henry Thornton.

Over the last fifty years the life and work of Edmund Burke (1729-1797) has received sustained scholarly attention and debate. The publication of the complete correspondence in ten volumes and the nine volume edition of Burke's Writings and Speeches have provided material for the scholarly reassessment of his life and works. Attention has focused in particular on locating his ideas in the history of eighteenth-century theory and practice and the contexts of late eighteenth-century conservative thought. This book broadens the focus to examine the many sided interest in Burke's ideas primarily in Europe, and most notably in politics and aesthetics. It draws on the work of leading international scholars to present new perspectives on the significance of Burke's ideas in European politics and culture.

A biography of a seemingly forgotten yet singularly important eighteenth century figure, this book includes revealing insights into the business and political landscape of his day, and explores both his professional and personal life, essential for histories of Britain and the Empire. Laurence Sulivan embodied the East India Company. He lived at the Company's heart in the city of London and controlled a vast commercial and political empire during Britain's 'Commercial Revolution', in the late eighteenth century, and rise to superpower status and supremacy in India and South and Southeast Asia. He was 'kingmaker', politician, manipulator and negotiator, deeply involved in British and Indian affairs, friend and confident of Chatham, Clive, Burke and Pitt the Younger and - very importantly - protector of Warren Hastings. George K. McGilvary paints a vivid and convincing picture of a supremely influential and colourful business figure as he controlled the most powerful private company of his day - and at the centre of the eighteenth century public-private nexus in business and government.

In this fascinating new account of Old Regime Europe, T.C.W. Blanning explores the cultural revolution which transformed eighteenth-century Europe. During this period the court culture exemplified by Louis XIV's Versailles was pushed from the centre to the margins by the emergence of a new kind of space - the public sphere. The author shows how many of the world's most important cultural institutions developed in this space: the periodical, the newspaper, the novel, the lending library,the coffee house, the voluntary association, the journalist, and the critic. It was here that public opinion staked its claim to be the ultimate arbiter of culture and politics. For the established order this new force was to prove both a challenge and an opportunity and the author's comparative study of power and culture shows how regimes sought to keep their balance as the ground moved beneath their feet. In the process he explains, among other things, why Britain won the 'Second HundredYears War' against France, how Prussia rose to become the dominant power in German-speaking Europe, and why the French monarchy collapsed.