Crowds, Culture, and Politics in Georgian Britain

Crowds have long been part of the historical landscape. Professor Nicholas Rogers examines the changing role and character of crowds in Georgian politics through an investigation of some of the major crowd interventions in the period 1714-1821. He shows how the topsy-turvy interventions of the Jacobite era gave way to the more disciplined parades of Hanoverian England, a transition shaped by the effects of war, revolution, and the expansion of the state and the market. These changes unsettled the existing relationship between crowds and authority, raising issues of citizenship, class, and gender which fostered the emergence of a radical mass platform. On this platform, radical men (and, more ambiguously, women) staked out new demands for political power and recognition. In this original and fascinating study, Professor Rogers shows us that Hanoverian crowds were more than dissonant voices on the margins; they were an integral part of eighteenth-century politics.