Daniel Waley

Peter Denley

From the divine right of kings to the political philosophies of writers such as Machiavelli, the medieval city-states to the unification of Spain, Daniel Waley and Peter Denley focus on the growing power of the state to illuminate changing political ideas in Europe between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. Spanning the entire continent and beyond, and using contemporary voices wherever possible, the authors include substantial sections on economics, religion, and art, and how developments in these areas fed into and were influenced by the transformation of political thinking. The new edition takes the narrative beyond the confines of western Europe with chapters on East Central Europe and the teutonic knights, and the Portuguese expansion across the Atlantic. The third edition of this classic introduction to the period includes even greater use of contemporary voices, full reading lists, and new chapters on East Central Europe and Portuguese exploration. Suitable as an introductory text for undergraduate courses in Medieval Studies and Medieval European History.

1250-1520

Later Medieval Europe

Jim Smyth

Lecturer Cturer Department of History Peter Denley

The three kingdoms or 'four nations' which became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801 have distinct, but not separate, histories. Sensitive questions of religion, local loyalty, and allegiance to the state, shaped politics within and between the four nations - and still give an edge to politics in parts of modern Britain. In 1660, the restoration of Charles II to all three of his kingdoms, was followed by an attempt to impose religious uniformity across his kingdoms. It failed. The make-up of the British Isles was too diverse. Tories, Jacobites, radicals and Whigs each had strong links to a Church or religious faction. Politics and religion could intermingle dangerously. Fear of popery was a major cause of the revolution of 1688, and at the beginning of the eighteenth century Presbyterians led Scottish opposition to a union until they were recognised as an established church. At the end of the century the architects of the act of union with Ireland hoped, finally, to resolve the 'Catholic Question', but (as it does today) constitutional change brought issues of national identity to the fore. The eighteenth century witnessed the triumph of unionism on the larger island, and the rise of nationalism and separatism across the Irish sea. "The Making of the United Kingdom" seeks to explain that crucial divergence, and gives an incisive account of the forging of Britishness the sense of a new nation. Jim Smyth is Professor of History, University of Notre Dame."

Daniel Waley

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