1688 The First Modern Revolution Steven Pincus

For two hundred years historians have viewed England's Glorious Revolution of 1688-1689 as an un-revolutionary revolution - bloodless, consensual, aristocratic, and above all, sensible. In this brilliant new interpretation Steve Pincus refutes this traditional view. By expanding the interpretive lens to include a broader geographical and chronological frame, Pincus demonstrates that England's revolution was a European event, that it took place over a number of years, not months, and that it had repercussions in India, North America, the West Indies, and throughout continental Europe. His rich historical narrative, based on masses of new archival research, traces the transformation of English foreign policy, religious culture, and political economy that, he argues, was the intended consequence of the revolutionaries of 1688-1689. James II developed a modernization programme that emphasized centralized control, repression of dissidents, and territorial empire. The revolutionaries, by contrast, took advantage of the new economic possibilities to create a bureaucratic but participatory state. The post-revolutionary English state emphasized its ideological break with the past and envisioned itself as continuing to evolve. All of this, argues Pincus, makes the Glorious Revolution - not the French Revolution - the first truly modern revolution. This wide-ranging book reenvisions the nature of the Glorious Revolution and of revolutions in general, the causes and consequences of commercialization, the nature of liberalism, and ultimately the origins and contours of modernity itself.

Steven Pincus is professor of history at Yale University. He is the author of The Politics of the Public Sphere in Early Modern England, Protestantism and Patriotism: Ideologies and the Making of English Foreign Policy, 1650-1668, and England's Glorious Revolution: A Brief History with Documents.

"An engaging read... this book will unquestionably become a major talking-point among all interested in Britain's last revolution."—Ted Vallance, BBC History Magazine

"Mr. Pincus's cogently argued account of what really happened during England's revolution destroys many comforting notions that have prevailed for more than 200 years... It leaves the reader with something much more exciting: a new understanding of the origins of the modern, liberal state."—Economist

"A magnificent, fully documented, very well written study of how the first thorough-going modern revolution was achieved with effort and against substantial obstacles over several years. Pincus overturns many received views: this book will raise fascinated interest in the late seventeenth century for many years to come, making it indispensable reading."—Nigel Smith, Princeton University

"Pincus’s argument is a fascinating one, his study packed full of detail but never confusing or inaccessible."—Lesley McDowell, The Herald

"The sheer size of this impressively holistic study makes it hard to digest at one sitting. 1688 is a book to revisit and reflect upon, for there is so much to ponder here."—John Gibney, Journal of Ecclesiastical History