The London Mob: Violence and Disorder in an Eighteenth-Century England

by Robert Shoemaker

An account of the street life, riots, public fights and violent crime in 18th-century London, and how this changed between the late 17th century and 1800. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1852853735
• ISBN13: 9781852853730
• Release Date: June 2004
• Publisher: Hambledon & London
• Length: 393 Pages
• Weight: 0.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Expert study of the losers

This volume is based on a course the author taught at the University of London and is enhanced by her discussions with colleagues at the annual Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies, which is to say she knows what she's talking about when it comes to perspectives of conquest, especially as they pertain to (in this case) the losers. Certainly, Harold Godwinson is remembered mostly for having lost his kingdom at Hastings, but the family went on to be both glorified and demonized. Where did all this status come from? The hard facts regarding the family's wealth and power survive to some extent in official records but the narrative context is all prejudicial in one direction or the other. Mason tries to correct this by tracing the role of the kin-group in Anglo-Saxon society, and the importance of the church (which Godwine and his descendants carefully supported), and the astute political maneuvering by the founder of the family during the reign of Canute, the canny Danish interloper. An expert study and a good starting point for further examination of the kingdom-as-family-business.