England in the Eighteenth Century - J H Plumb

This history of England in the eighteenth century is not a chronological narrative of ministries and wars, but a history of the development of English society; the ministries and wars, of course, have their place, but no greater a place than the economic, cultural, and social history of the time.

The book has been divided into three parts: the Ages of Walpole, of Chatham, and of Pitt. These divisions are useful for analysing those social forces which enabled these three great statesmen to stamp the impress of their personality upon history. But there are aspects of English life which belong to the century as a whole and cannot be forced into any chronological divisions. Obviously to have written three short chapters on India, or on Ireland, would have been to make a fetish out of a convenience. Instead these subjects, and others, have been dealt with at the time when they became a dominant theme in English life.

Most of this book is devoted to the hard and bitter lives of ordinary men and women, and to those men of genius and talent, who made it a time for hope.