1688: The First Modern Revolution by Steve Pincus

Product Details

Synopsis

For two hundred years historians have viewed England’s Glorious Revolution of 1688–1689 as an un-revolutionary revolution—bloodless, consensual, aristocratic, and above all, sensible. In this brilliant new interpretation Steve Pincus refutes this traditional view.

By expanding the interpretive lens to include a broader geographical and chronological frame, Pincus demonstrates that England’s revolution was a European event, that it took place over a number of years, not months, and that it had repercussions in India, North America, the West Indies, and throughout continental Europe. His rich historical narrative, based on masses of new archival research, traces the transformation of English foreign policy, religious culture, and political economy that, he argues, was the intended consequence of the revolutionaries of 1688–1689.

James II developed a modernization program that emphasized centralized control, repression of dissidents, and territorial empire. The revolutionaries, by contrast, took advantage of the new economic possibilities to create a bureaucratic but participatory state. The postrevolutionary English state emphasized its ideological break with the past and envisioned itself as continuing to evolve. All of this, argues Pincus, makes the Glorious Revolution—not the French Revolution—the first truly modern revolution. This wide-ranging book reenvisions the nature of the Glorious Revolution and of revolutions in general, the causes and consequences of commercialization, the nature of liberalism, and ultimately the origins and contours of modernity itself.

Library Journal

The Glorious Revolution of 1688–89 has traditionally been viewed as a very "un-revolutionay" revolution in the sense that is was seen as bloodless, consensual, and conservative. Pincus (history, Yale Univ.; The Politics of the Public Sphere in Early Modern England) refutes this view and instead argues that it was a complex event that had its origins in the previous century, was deeply influenced by the broader situation in Europe, and, most important, was the first truly modern revolution in the sense that it was "popular, violent and divisive," radically transforming English society. Using brilliant historical narrative, Pincus draws on numerous archival sources to detail the causes and consequences of various components of the revolution, including foreign policy, political economy, the Church, the popular revolution, and the violent revolution, also discussing revolutions in general. VERDICT This is a highly impressive work that will ultimately change our understanding of the Glorious Revolution. Essential reading for all students of British history or of historical revolutions generally.—Carrie Benbow, Toronto P.L., Ont.

Biography

Steven Pincus is professor of history at Yale University. He is the author of The Politics of the Public Sphere in Early Modern England, Protestantism and Patriotism: Ideologies and the Making of English Foreign Policy, 1650-1668, and England’s Glorious Revolution: A Brief History with Documents.