Stability and Strife: England, 1714-1760

This is quite a good single volume overview of English social and political history in the 18th Century. The book has two halves - social first, which discusses increasing wealth, urbanisation, and civic stability, and political thereafter, where the apparent instability of political life belied an underlining emergence of parliamentary representation and constitutional monarchy. I enjoyed the social history more than I expected. The chapters are quite full of evidence and anecdote and it's a worthwhile read. One area that stuck in my mind was the efforts over the century for the professions (especially legal and medical) to distinguish themselves on the social hierarchy. The legal profession succeeded first, establishing specialist training and associations, which medical physicians did so next, however up to 1745 surgeons and barbers were considered to be the one profession!. The book is quite good on the emergence of various layers of society, in the context of increasing wealth and urbanisation. The second half of the book describes the emergence of British parliamentary democracy as we have come to know it. The Hanovarian Kings were quite circumscribed in their powers from the start, but none the less the House of Commons made great use of its taxation authority to wrest more and more power over the century. I was a bit unhappy with the rather scant level of detail with which the administrations of the period were dealt with - only Walpoles was dealt with in anything approaching sufficient detail. However characters such as Stanhope, Henry Pelham and Bollingbroke get some recognition. I felt Pitt (the Elder) was somewhat short changed, and Speck treats him as being inconsistent and muddled in quoting the remark that `Canada was won on the fields of Germany', when in fact Pitt was summing up the journey his policy had made from the `clear blue water' policy of colonial expansion through naval power, versus the land war requirements of Hanovarian foreign policy pursued by the first two Georges. It was the combination of the two - keeping France occupied by land and sea which forced her to divide her efforts and ultimately fail. Paul Kennedy - a contemporary of Speck's - points out that `of the seven Anglo-French conflicts between 1689 and 1815, the only one which Britain lost was that in which no fighting took place in Europe'. I think Speck, not Pitt, missed this point completely. In general, an excellent introduction, but more detail is needed on the political history.