The English revolution and the roots of environmental change : the changing concept of the land in early modern England

VIII, 273 S.

graph. Darst.

Includes bibliographical references and index

Introduction: The changing of the open, communal land into a national, commercial land, and the neglect of economic effects : is the environment history?Part one. The close of the universal world of medieval England -- The light touch of communalism on the land, and the openness of the medieval world -- The dismissal of the saints, and the disappearance of the universal Church -- The reordering of the physical and intellectual spheres -- "The exceeding lucre that they see grow" : higher profits, and a heightened sense of property -- Enclosure and consolidated holdings : the break-up of the communal system -- The basis of improvement -- The changing face of the land, and the "great bravery of building which marvellously beautified the realm" -- Part two. The consolidation of a political nation -- The definition of the state, and the developing structures of national administration -- The national expansion of the middling sort, and the relevance of the rise of the gentry -- "The authority of the whole realm" : parliamentary law as the first principle of representative rights, and national sovereignty -- Freedom of trade as a developing principle : the assertion of absolute property against prerogative impositions -- Parliament as a point of contact between the constituencies : the emergence of a freestanding national interest, and roots of English liberty -- The Elizabethan nation : "The envy of less happier lands" -- The foreign foreign policy of James I -- "A declaration of the state of the kingdom" : the national imperatives that necessitated automatic parliaments, and the triumph of freedom of trade -- The commercial landscape : "How wide the limits stand between a splendid and a happy land" -- Conclusion: The limits of the commercial land : is the environment history?

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