Dividing the nation and causing massive political change, the English Civil War remains one of the most decisive and dramatic conflicts of English history. Lawrence Stone's account of the factors leading up to the deposition of Charles I in 1642 is widely regarded as a classic in the field. Brilliantly synthesising the historical, political and sociological interpretations of the seventeeth century, Stone explores theories of revolution and traces the social and economic change that led to this period of instability. The picture that emerges is one where historical interpretation is enriched but not determined by grand theories in the social sciences and, as Stone elegantly argues, one where the upheavals of the seventeenth century are central to the very story of modernity. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new foreword by Clare Jackson, Trinity Hall, Cambridge.

Dividing the nation and causing massive political change, the English Civil War remains one of the most decisive and dramatic conflicts of English history. Lawrence Stone's account of the factors leading up to the deposition of Charles I in 1642 is widely regarded as a classic in the field. Brilliantly synthesising the historical, political and sociological interpretations of the seventeeth century, Stone explores theories of revolution and traces the social and economic change that led to this period of instability. The picture that emerges is one where historical interpretation is enriched but not determined by grand theories in the social sciences and, as Stone elegantly argues, one where the upheavals of the seventeenth century are central to the very story of modernity. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new foreword by Clare Jackson, Trinity Hall, Cambridge.

The study of eighteenth century history has been transformed by the writings of John Brewer, and most recently, with The Sinews of Power, he challenged the central concepts of British history. Brewer argues that the power of the British state increased dramatically when it was forced to pay the costs of war in defence of her growing empire. In An Imperial State at War, edited by Lawrence Stone (himself no stranger to controversy), the leading historians of the eighteenth century put the Brewer thesis under the spotlight. Like the Sinews of Power itself, this is a major advance in the study of Britain's first empire.

John Brewer has tranformed the study of eighteenth century British history, and with his most recent book, "The Sinews of Power, " has challenged its most central concepts. Brewer puts forth a Britain forced to pay the costs of war in defense of a growing empire, with the power of the state increasing dramatically. As laissez faire' drops away, a stronger, more centralized and powerful Britian emerges.
In "An Imperial State at War, " edited by Lawrence Stone (himself a figure of controversy), the leading historians working on the eigteenth century put the Brewer thesis to the test. Like "The Sinews of Power" itself, this is a major advance in the study of first period empire.

First Published in 1987. Presented as two sections, the first includes three surveys which aim to describe and comment on some of radial changes in the questions historians have been asking about the past and some of the new data, tools and methodology they have developed to answer them. The second is a collection of essays that were originally reflective book reviews and are concerned with the theme of how and why did Western Europe change itself during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries so as to lay the social, economic, scientific, political, ideological and ethical foundations for the rationalist, democratic, individualistic, technological industrialized society in which we now live.

Lawrence Stone is one of the world's foremost historians. In such widely acclaimed volumes as The Crisis of the Aristocracy, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England and The Open Society, he has shown himself to be a provocative and engaging writer as well as a master chronicler of English family life. Now, with Road to Divorce, Stone examines the complex ways in which English men and women have used, twisted, and defied the law to deal with marital breakdown.
Despite the infamous divorce of Henry VIII in 1529, Britons before the 20th century were predominantly, in Stone's words, "a non-divorcing and non-separating society." In fact, before divorce was legalized in 1857, England was the only Protestant country with virtually no avenue for divorce on the grounds of adultery, desertion, or cruelty. Yet marriages did fail, and in Road to Divorce, Stone examines a goldmine of court records--in which witnesses speak freely about love, sex, adultery, and marriage--memoirs, correspondence, and popular imaginative works to reveal how lawyers and the laity coped with marital discord. Equally important, in tracing the history of divorce, Stone has discovered a way to recapture the slow, irregular, and tentative evolution of moral values concerning relations between the sexes as well as the consequent shift from concepts of patriarchy to those of sexual equality. He thus offers a privileged, indeed almost unique, insight into the interaction of the public spheres of morality, religion, and the law.
Written by the foremost historian of family life, Road to Divorce provides the first full study of a topic rich in historical interest and contemporary importance, one that offers astonishingly frank and intimate insights into our ancestors' changing views about what makes and breaks a marriage.

Lawrence Stone's trilogy on marriage in early modern England has been widely praised. The New York Times Book Review hailed the first volume, Road to Divorce as "sure-footed and fascinating commentary" and chose it as a Notable Book of 1990. Christopher Hibbert in the Independent found that the "absorbing and often extraordinary" stories in volume two, Uncertain Unions "throw a clear, bright light not only upon the making and breaking of marriages in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, but also on social customs and the intimacies of private lives." Now, in Broken Lives, the third and final book, Stone sets out to examine the various ways people ended marriages and the lengths to which they would go to do so.
Drawing from a massive archive of court cases, Stone presents stories that paint a revealing portrait of divorce in the period before 1857. Divorce could only be obtained by Act of Parliament, and often at great expense and with much difficulty. As Stone writes, however extreme the circumstances, the legal breaking of a marriage on the grounds of cruelty was not easy to obtain in seventeenth-century England. For instance, in Boteler v. Boteler, Anne Boteler, wife of Sir Oliver Boteler, had overwhelming evidence of her husband's abuse (which included death threats and physical attacks on Anne and her children). Yet even though Sir Oliver's own relatives testified against him, it took Anne three years to obtain a legal separation. Of course, in some instances, the wife had the upperhand. In Lovedon v. Lovedon, we see an instance in which a wife could repeatedly appeal her husband's suit for divorce at his expense. By law, Edward Lovedon was obliged to pay all of his wife Anne's bills until they were officially divorced. And in Beaufort v. Beaufort we learn that women would often successfully countersue their husbands for divorce on the grounds of impotence--in those days, it was more than likely that a man would fail the public test he underwent to prove his virility. Other cases reveal intriguing and often spiteful aspects of marital breakdown: servants blackmailing their adulterous masters and mistresses; and husbands suing their wives' lovers for property damage (i.e. to the wives' bodies).
One of the world's leading authorities on the history of the family, Lawrence Stone has mapped the arduous routes which people took to break marriages--from private separation agreements to Parliamentary ruling. And as he does so, he provides a fascinating glimpse into daily life and marital conduct, and allows us to eavesdrop on the testimony and conversations of men and women of all sorts and conditions--from the serving girl to the served--in the changing social world of early modern England.

The essays in this book seek to establish a true sociology of education. Their primary concern is the relationship between formal education and other social forces through the ages. Thus, the book combines the history of higher education with social history in order to understand the process of historical change. To ascertain the responses of the universities to such broad social changes as the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Industrial Revolution, the authors ask such questions as: who were the students and how many were there? how did they get to the university and why did they come? how did they spend their time and what did they learn? what jobs did they fill and how did what they learned help them in later life? how have faculty members viewed their roles over the years? Lawrence Stone is Dodge Professor of History at Princeton University, Chairman of the History Department, and Director of the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies. Originally published in 1974. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The essays in this book seek to establish a true sociology of education. Their primary concern is the relationship between formal education and other social forces through the ages. Thus, the book combines the history of higher education with social history in order to understand the process of historical change. To ascertain the responses of the universities to such broad social changes as the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Industrial Revolution, the authors ask such questions as: who were the students and how many were there? how did they get to the university and why did they come? how did they spend their time and what did they learn? what jobs did they fill and how did what they learned help them in later life? how have faculty members viewed their roles over the years? Lawrence Stone is Dodge Professor of History at Princeton University, Chairman of the History Department, and Director of the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies. Originally published in 1974. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

George Lawrence Stone's Stick Control is the bible of drumming. In 1993, Modern Drummer magazine named the book one of the top 25 books of all-time. In the words of the author, it is the ideal book for improving: control, speed, flexibility, touch, rhythm, lightness, delicacy, power, endurance, preciseness of execution and muscular coordination, with extra attention given to the development of the weak hand. This indispensable book for drummers of all types includes hundreds of basic to advanced-level rhythms, moving through categories of single-beat combinations, triplets, short roll combinations, flam beats, flam triplets and dotted notes, and short roll progressions.

Made by Lawrence Stone himself, this abridgement of his highly-regarded study omits many statistical details not needed by the non-specialized reader. It presents a new interpretation of the long-term social changes leading up to the English Revolution of the mid-seventeenth century.

The essays in this book seek to establish a true sociology of education. Their primary concern is the relationship between formal education and other social forces through the ages. Thus, the book combines the history of higher education with social history in order to understand the process of historical change. To ascertain the responses of the universities to such broad social changes as the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Industrial Revolution, the authors ask such questions as: who were the students and how many were there? how did they get to the university and why did they come? how did they spend their time and what did they learn? what jobs did they fill and how did what they learned help them in later life? how have faculty members viewed their roles over the years? Lawrence Stone is Dodge Professor of History at Princeton University, Chairman of the History Department, and Director of the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies. Originally published in 1974. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

In the highly acclaimed Road to Divorce, the first of a three-volume history of marriage in early modern England, renowned historian Lawrence Stone explored the different ways in which marriage could take place, and analysed the confusion and uncertainty surrounding the legality of the institution in its various forms before the Marriage Act of 1753. Now, in Uncertain Unions, Stone presents a multitude of case-studies showing just how these courting and marrying couples were able to maneuver around the ambiguities of marriage law in England, and the many reasons they did so.
Based on a massive archive of court cases that illustrate the extraordinary variety of legal, quasi-legal, and illegal ways of making a marriage, here are stories of forced marriages, clandestine marriages, prenuptial pregnancies, unwise courtship, and other situations in which people often became entangled in a web of moral and legal contradiction that could, and often did, lead to personal catastrophe. Stone shows how, as a result of glaring defects in the laws of marriage, very large numbers of people in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries could never be quite sure whether they were married or not. For instance, in Elmes v. Elmes, we see a wife by ecclesiastical marriage, and a wife by clandestine marriage fight over a man and his inheritance--in this case, each woman could rightfully claim legitimacy as Mr. Elmes's wife. Other cases reveal how a parish easily pinned the blame of fatherhood onto an innocent man and thus the financial burden of a bastard child onto another parish, and how a married man threw the blame for a bastard child onto a fellow townsman, among many other intriguing schemes.
Lawrence Stone illuminates the ways in which, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, demands by individuals for love and affection were starting to take precedence over family interests in the search for a spouse. The studies he has drawn on for Uncertain Unions enable us to see this moral transition played out in the lives of the men and women within these pages. Revealing various types of marriages, and the different levels of sexual liaisons, Uncertain Unions is vivid human history, from the leading historian on family life.
Praise for Road to Divorce
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year, 1990:
"There are many...gems to be found in this volume...from the current spectacular levels of illegitimacy to the increased economic dependence of women...Road to Divorce offers a sure-footed and fascinating commentary."--New York Times Book Review
"His energy and his achievement are stupendous....Stone's book...breathes new life into an old subject by advancing fresh hypotheses and much fascinating new material."--The New York Review of Books

An Open Elite? sets out to test the traditional view that for centuries English landed society has been open to new families made rich by business or public office. From a detailed examination of the landed elites of three counties between 1540 and 1880, the authors come to radical new conclusions about the landed classes. They describe the strategies of marriage and inheritance evolved by older families to preserve their position, and establish that the number of newcomers was always relatively small. The resulting work is a major reassessment of the social, economic, and political history of England since the Reformation.
This abridged edition of what was immediately recognized as a major work of historical scholarship was first published in 1986 and is now available in Clarendon Paperback with a new foreword by Lawrence Stone.

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone

During the period 1500 - 1800 there were massive changes in world social and cultural systems, and the family unit as we recognize it today came into being. The emphasis on the individual, the right to personal freeedoms and the desire for privacy developed during this period and were symptomatic of world-wide shifts in attitude that also affected religion and politics.

This learned and highly informative book is a study of the evolution of the family, from the (to us) impersonal, economically bonded and precarious extended family group of the sixteenth century to the smaller, affectively bonded nuclear unit that had appeared by the end of the eighteenth century, and shows how this process radically influenced child-rearing, education, contraception, sexual behaviour and marriage.

Richly and intimately documented, logical, lucid, 'delightful to read', this is a work that challenges many of the conventional views hitherto held about English society at that period.

George Lawrence Stone's Stick Control is the bible of drumming. In 1993, Modern Drummer magazine named the book one of the top 25 books of all-time. In the words of the author, it is the ideal book for improving: control, speed, flexibility, touch, rhythm, lightness, delicacy, power, endurance, preciseness of execution and muscular coordination, with extra attention given to the development of the weak hand. This indispensable book for drummers of all types includes hundreds of basic to advanced-level rhythms, moving through categories of single-beat combinations, triplets, short roll combinations, flam beats, flam triplets and dotted notes, and short roll progressions.