London

Robert O. Bucholz is Professor of History at Loyola University, Chicago. He is the co-author (with Newton Key) of Early-Modern England, 1485–1714: A Narrative History (2nd edition, 2009) and Sources and Debates in English History, 1485–1714 (2nd edition, 2009) and the co-editor (with Carol Levin) of Queens and Power in Medieval and Early Modern England (2009). Joseph P. Ward is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of History at the University of Mississippi. He is the author of Metropolitan Communities: Trade Guilds, Identity, and Change in Early Modern London (1997) and he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 2000.

• Introduction: London's importance; 1. London in 1550; 2. The socioeconomic base; 3. Royal and civic London; 4. Fine and performing arts; 5. The public sphere and popular culture; 6. The people on the margins; 7. Riot and rebellion; 8. Plague and fire; Conclusion: London in 1750.

'[London is] a serious and remarkably successful attempt to describe how the city reached the cusp of 'modernity', how it emerged from relative obscurity in the middle of the sixteenth century to become, about 200 years later, 'the greatest city in Europe', with a population whose distinctive traits are recognizable to this day.' Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post