Democracy and anti-democracy in early modern England, 1603-1689. / / Cesare Cuttica and Markku Peltonen.

• Superior document: History of European Political and Constitutional Thought ; 1
• TeilnehmendeR: Cuttica, Cesare,; Peltonen, Markku,
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden, Netherlands : : Brill,, 2019.
• Year of Publication: 2019
• Language: English
• Series: History of European Political and Constitutional Thought ; 1.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource.
• Notes: Includes index.

This cross-disciplinary collection of essays examines – for the first time and in detail – the variegated notions of democracy put forward in seventeenth-century England. It thus shows that democracy was widely explored and debated at the time; that anti-democratic currents and themes have a long history; that the seventeenth century is the first period in English history where we nonetheless find positive views of democracy; and that whether early-modern writers criticised or advocated it, these discussions were important for the subsequent development of the concept and practice ‘democracy’. By offering a new historical account of such development, the book provides an innovative exploration of an important but overlooked topic whose relevance is all the more considerable in today’s political debates, civic conversation, academic arguments and media talk. Contributors include Camilla Boisen, Alan Cromartie, Cesare Cuttica, Hannah Dawson, Martin Dzelzainis, Rachel Foxley, Matthew Growhoski, Rachel Hammersley, Peter Lake, Gaby Mahlberg, Markku Peltonen, Edward Vallance, and John West.

Table of Contents

Front Matter -- Copyright -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- Abbreviations and Conventions -- Notes on Contributors -- ‘Gone Missing’: Democracy and Anti-democracy in Seventeenth-Century England / Cesare Cuttica and Markku Peltonen -- Democracy and the People: Citizenship, Representation and the Commonwealth -- Imagining Citizenship in the Levellers and Milton / Rachel Foxley -- Democracy, Toleration, and the Interests of the People / Alan Cromartie -- ‘All Government is in the people, from the people, and for the people’: Democracy in the English Revolution / Markku Peltonen -- The Place of Democracy in Late Stuart England / Hannah Dawson -- Democracy and the World-Turned-Upside-Down: Religion, Emotions and Polemical Fire -- ‘A most dangerous rudeness’: Anti-populism and the Literary Justification of Absolutism in the Fiction of John Barclay (1582–1621) / Matthew Growhoski -- The Spectre Haunting Early Seventeenth-Century England (ca. 1603–1649): Democracy at Its Worst / Cesare Cuttica -- Anti-puritanism as Political Discourse; the Laudian Critique of Puritan ‘Popularity’ / Peter Lake -- Presbyterians, Republicans, and Democracy in Church and State, ca. 1570–1660 / Rachel Hammersley -- Poetry, the Passions, and Anti-democracy in Later Stuart England / John West -- Democracy and the Other: Slaves, Natives and Women -- Democracy and Anti-democracy: the Roger Williams and John Cotton Debate Revisited / Camilla Boisen -- ‘The vulgar only scap’d who stood without’: Milton and the Politics of Exclusion / Martin Dzelzainis -- A Democratic Culture? Women, Citizenship and Subscriptional Texts in Early Modern England / Edward Vallance -- The Parliament of Women and the Restoration Crisis / Gaby Mahlberg -- Back Matter -- Index.