This study outlines the origins of Milton's idiosyncratic ambivalence towards woman and charts its developmental character in and out of poetry and prose. It includes an introductory survey of influential critical opinion on the subject, including feminist readings.

‘The English Revolution was a revolution in reading.’ For the first time more people had access to books and other printed media containing a far broader spectrum of information than had previously been the case. But an increase in access to material meant an increase in discussion and expression of opinions, some of which had the potential to be detrimental to the stability of the state. It was therefore in the interest of the state to restrict access to this material to those that possessed the requisite educational training with which to understand the ideas and opinions now in circulation. For Samuel Hartlib, John Dury, Johan Amos Comenius, John Hall, John Milton and Marchamont Nedham however, the answer lay not in restricting access to information and education, but rather in the extension of educational opportunity beyond the governing elite of the country in order to equip the emerging ‘reading public’ with the skills they needed to take an active part in the political life of the country. In the opinion of these writers it was only through effective educational reform that the political and religious growth of the country could continue. A strong theme emerging within the tracts discussed in this book is that an adequately reformed educational system will provide the state with an able and useful populace on which they can depend in times of crisis. Allied to this is the notion that the populace is entitled to receive a level of education appropriate to their abilities and talents and that the state bears a responsibility to play at least some part in providing that education, whether formally or through the dissemination of information through the printing press. As will be seen from the discussion of the literature produced at the time, the ideas and reforms suggested within these tracts were the continuation of an intellectual context in which the development of learning and the expansion of knowledge were seen as paramount. Drawing on the religious ideas of the millennium, as well as the philosophical ideas of Bacon especially, the writers to be considered here sought the reformation of the educational system, as well as a broader series of social reforms, in order to perfect the Reformation and make England ready for the new age.

Challenging contemporary perceptions of the ascetic in the early modern period, this book explores asceticism as a vital site of religious conflict and literary creativity, rather than merely a vestige of a medieval past.

These essays lead the reader into the political and intellectual worlds within which John Milton wrote his verse and prose, and into the later worlds within which his reputation evolved and fluctuated. The illuminating and entertaining range of perspectives will appeal to specialists and non-specialists alike.

The book places Otto-Peter's literary work in a historical and biographical framework. In the 1840s she investigated the condition of the German working class in a way that invites comparison with Engels, and used the material for early novels. Later in life she was involved with a number of women's organizations and edited a journal of women's emancipations; all these developments are recounted in detail, with helpful references to parallel movements in Britain and America.

Within industrial relations, the mainstream literature has not shown much interest in women as the subjects or shapers of research. This study shows the centrality of women's organizing to unionism and women's experience of unions, and provides insights into the circumstances necessary for women's sustained activism. It examines union operations and how women's groups influence and are influenced by them. It synthesizes research and theory from different literatures, including industrial relations, gender studies and social psychology. It contributes an analysis of the organizational identity of individual unions and women's groups. It also examines the complex relations between unions and their women's groups within particular institutions, including the little-examined area of women's engagement in less formal as well as mainstream union activity. Finally, it develops a number of key recommendations for both women's groups and union strategy, firmly based on the empirical findings.

This study addresses the three major aspects of Britain's discriminatory approach to women's employment laws which were domestic service, broad unemployment and the links between voluntary bodies and the British state.