This is the third volume of the authoritative history of the county of Gwent, geared towards an understanding of the county's past for the twenty-first century reader. Volume III is a highly illustrated collection dealing with the early modern period of Welsh history, from the creation of Monmouthshire by the Act of Union in 1536 to the beginnings of industrialization in the later eighteenth century.

Here Chris Williams and Andy Croll, two distinguished historians of twentieth-century Britain, particularly Wales, marshal seventeen fellow historians to describe the momentous twentieth-century history of southeast Wales. The book is the fifth and last volume in a comprehensive history of Gwent/Monmouthshire from prehistoric times to the present day. Chapters detail the two world wars and deep depression that tested the resilience of the county's people, as well as how the decline of mining and heavy industry shifted the balance of the county's economy. Others analyze the life and leisure of ordinary people; their cultural, intellectual, and sporting interests; their religion, which formerly bulked so large in their lives; and the changes in the landscape of town and country.

A study of the thirty-five Carnegie libraries built in towns and industrial communities in Wales before the First World War. The library system is in a transformative phase that attracts much attention; these Carnegie buildings have never been fully recorded, and some are in critical condition. This book illustrates their social, cultural and architectural significance, and how they reflect Carnegie's extraordinary philanthropic vision. It reviews the free and public library system in Wales and Great Britain from the first Public Libraries Act of 1850, followed by an account of Carnegie's career as 'the richest man in the world' and the importance he attached to promoting libraries for all, regardless of age and gender. The haphazard development of public libraries in the nineteenth century is the context in which Carnegie's links with Wales are noted, along with the circles in which he moved in Britain. The largest section discusses the libraries' locations, sites and patrons, and the buildings themselves. It concludes with Carnegie's legacy in Wales, not least the role of his UK Trust in the county library movement after 1911.

The peculiar origins of the Tudor family and the improbable saga of their rise and fall and rise again in the centuries before the Battle of Bosworth have been largely overlooked. Based on both published and manuscript aources from Britain and France, The Making of the Tudor Dynasty sets the record straight by providing the only coherant and authoritative account of the ancestors of the Tudor royal family from their beginnings in North Wales at the start of the thirteenth century, through royal English and French connections in the fifteenth century, to Henry Tudor's victory at Bosworth Field in 1485.

Henry VI is the youngest monarch ever to have ascended the English throne and the only English king to have been acknowledged by the French as rightfully King of France. His reign was the third longest since the Norman conquest and he came close to being declared a saint. This masterly study, unparalleled in its informative detail, examines the entire span of the king's reign, from the death of Henry V in 1422, when Henry was only nine months old, to the period of his insanity at the beginning of the Wars of the Roses, his dethronement in 1461 and his murder ten years later. This classic re-assessment of the third Lancastrian king is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of fifteenth-century England. The third edition includes an additional chapter on recent research.

The notion of service was ingrained in medieval culture, prominent throughout the language and life of the time. The notion of service was ingrained in medieval culture, and not just as a part of the wider concept of patronage: it is prominent throughout the language and life of the time. These studies examine the nature and importance of service in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in a variety of contexts both within and beyond the dominions of the English crown, including contracts between domestic servants and employers, labour legislation, career opportunities for graduates, the public service ethos embodied by the king's household retinue and a scheme for its reform, public service in France, ducal service in Brittany, and bastard feudalism in Scotland. ANNE CURRY is Professor of History, University of Southampton; ELIZABETH MATTHEW is honorary research fellow at the Department of History, University of Reading. Contributors: JEREMY GOLDBERG, CHRISTOPHER GIVEN-WILSON, MICHAEL JONES, ALEXANDER GRANT, VIRGINIA DAVIS, JEREMY I. CATTO, D.A.L. MORGAN, KATHELEEN DALY, RALPH A. GRIFFITHS.

First published as part of the best-selling The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, John Gillingham and Ralph A. Griffiths' Very Short Introduction to Medieval Britain covers the establishment of the Anglo-Norman monarchy in the early Middle Ages, through to England's failure to dominate the British Isles and France in the later Middle Ages.

King and Countryis a selection of essays and papers from Ralph A. Griffiths, published variously in Wales, England, France and North America between 1964 and 1990. It explores themes in the history of England and Wales in the Fifteenth Centuryand the dominions of the English crown beyond.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1981.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1981.