Bøker av J. C. D. (University of Kansas) Clark

This book offers an analysis of the life and thought of the writer Samuel Johnson from an historian's viewpoint, reversing the orthodoxy which has dominated the subject for over thirty years. Jonathan Clark presents here a strikingly different Johnson from the usual apolitical, pragmatic and eccentric figure of the standard accounts.

This book counters the Marxist interpretation of the 1640s and the 'English Revolution' by developing our new understanding of the non-revolutionary nature of the world after 1660: it challenges the appropriateness of 'revolution' as a description of events like those of 1688, 1776 and the Industrial Revolution, emphasising instead the idea of 'rebellion'.

This classic work of recent historiography broke the hold of the 'old guard' on this key period of English history. It has now been extensively rewritten, and in its updated form reinforces its arguments with new evidence and addresses some of the historical preoccupations of the past fifteen years.

In this book Dr Clark provides the key component for such a new synthesis by a detailed exposition of the crisis of the 1750s, which was instrumental in the destruction of the party system and the emergence of new practices in the multi-factional world.