3. More Essays from the Past

This my second volume of essays on History, published today in paperback and Kindle format, primarily covers the early modern and modern periods, from the sixteenth through to the mid-twentieth century focusing on issues in Britain and France. The opening chapter considers how the study of history and its rationale has changed in the decades since I first put pen to paper on the subject. This is followed by an essay on ecclesiastical history in Scandinavia when it transitioned from paganism to Christianity in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Chapters 3-5 look at aspects of early modern society. Chapter 3 considers the paradoxes, polarities and ambiguities and was written as the opening talk at a conference on Shakespeare in history in the late 1990s. Chapters 4 and 5 were written in the spring of 1972 on sixteenth century educational thinking in England and France. The remaining nine essays are concerned with modern history on British history. Chapter 6 considers migration to and from Britain from the 1780s to the post-war period. Chapters 7 and 8 consider two aspects of Chartism, first in an extensive essay on Wales and then the Isle of Man and France. The following four essays have a feminist focus. This is part of the two Jewish essays that form Chapter 9. The following two chapters consider the militancy of the suffrage movement especially amongst Suffragettes through the events and results of the 1913 Derby and the contentious question of prison and force-feeding, Chapter 12 looks at two aspects of women’s suffrage and cultural expression especially the uses of art in the cause of suffrage. The final two chapters examine the impact of the First World War on the reconstruction of education and housing in the inter-war period.