In Pursuit of Civility
Subtitle: Manners and Civilization in Early Modern England
Publisher: Brandeis University Press
Published: 2018
Language: eng
Number of pages: 424
ISBN-13: 9781512602807
Subjects: Etiquette, great britain; Great britain, civilization
Description: "The renowned historian Keith Thomas has written a peerless study of the place of civility in the shaping of English society between the early sixteenth and the late eighteenth centuries. Dramatic changes in court fashion and manners took place, but equally important was the emergence of an urban trading and manufacturing class with new values and standards of behavior. Traditional notions of class, gender, social custom, and Englishness would all be affected by the upheavals of the period. Civility emerged in contrast to barbarism, as England took its first steps towards global domination. Displaying a true master's grasp of the period, Thomas offers a compelling and wide-ranging analysis of the connections between changing notions of civility, the justification of colonial expansion, and the invention of race."--Publisher description.