| Crowds and History: Mass Phenomena in English Towns, 1790-1835 Revised Edition Contributor(s): Harrison, Mark (Author) |
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ISBN: 0521520134 ISBN-13: 9780521520133 Publisher: Cambridge University Press OUR PRICE: $37.99 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: June 2002 Annotation: In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, urbanisation ?revolutionised? English society as much as industrialisation. Central to this urbanising process, and the civic culture it inspired, was the bringing together of people in large numbers - to celebrate, commemorate, vilify or validate. Contemporary observers found the power and potential of urban crowds both awesome and alarming. They witnessed the capacity of the masses to confer honour and prestige upon a proud city elite or, by turning hostile, to bring civic ruin. Yet this ambivalent relationship between the individual and the crowd, which resonates through not only the nineteenth century but all human history, has remained generally ignored by historians. They have regarded crowds almost exclusively as a riotous, disruptive and protesting force. This book, which is the first systematic historical study of mass phenomena, challenges such preconceptions and re-defines the place of the crowd in history. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | Europe - Great Britain - General - History | Western Europe - General |
| Dewey: 942.07 |
| Series: Past and Present Publications |
| Physical Information: 0.85" H x 5.5" W x 8.5" (1.06 lbs) 380 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - Western Europe - Cultural Region - British Isles |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, urbanisation 'revolutionised' English society as much as industrialisation. Central to this urbanising process, and the civic culture it inspired, was the bringing together of people in large numbers - to celebrate, commemorate, vilify or validate. Contemporary observers found the power and potential of urban crowds both awesome and alarming. They witnessed the capacity of the masses to confer honour and prestige upon a proud city elite or, by turning hostile, to bring civic ruin. Yet this ambivalent relationship between the individual and the crowd, which resonates through not only the nineteenth century but all human history, has remained generally ignored by historians. They have regarded crowds almost exclusively as a riotous, disruptive and protesting force. This book, which is the first systematic historical study of mass phenomena, challenges such preconceptions and re-defines the place of the crowd in history. |