Royal Historical Society Studies in History Series

The Royal Historical Society's series Studies in History, founded by Sir Geoffrey Elton in 1975 and re-launched in 1995, has established itself as one of the leading outlets for specialist historical monographs. They are almost always based on doctoral dissertations that have been extensively developed and extended so that the wider significance of their findings are brought out, while at the same time they are leaner and fitter so as to come within a rigorous word limit of 90,000 words. The series takes a deliberately inclusive approach, covering all periods from early medieval to the recent history, and while most of the titles have been on British and Continental European History, submissions relating to any part of the world are welcomed. The series also seeks to embrace all approaches to historical research, requiring only that work should be of the highest quality. In conjunction with the publishers, Boydell and Brewer, the series maintains the very highest standard of publication. Work submitted is read by an expert appointed by the Board. Of particular importance is the close guidance and specialist advice given to authors by the relevant member of the editorial board and by the series' Executive Editor, Mrs Christine Linehan, who has held that position since the inception of the series and who has helped over 150 authors, many now very senior members of the profession, to take pride in their first books. All this, together with the work of the publishers, ensures the highest quality of both scholarship and presentation.

The Series is kindly supported by:

the Economic History Society and the Past and Present Society

Studies in History Editorial Board

Professor John Morrill, University of Cambridge (Convenor) - early modern British and Irish history

Professor Hannah Barker, University of Manchester - eighteenth and nineteenth-century British history

Professor Arthur Burns, King's College London (Literary Director, Royal Historical Society) - modern British history

Professor Barry Doyle, University of Huddersfield - nineteenth and twentieth-century British history

Professor Nigel Goose, University of Hertfordshire - economic and social history

Dr Rachel Hammersley, University of Newcastle - seventeenth to nineteenth-century European history (including British history)

Professor Colin Kidd, University of Belfast - intellectual history

Professor Daniel Power, Swansea University - medieval British and European history

Dr Bernhard Rieger, University College London - nineteenth to twentieth century European history (including British history)

Professor Alex Walsham, University of Cambridge - early modern British history

Submission of proposals

The Editorial Board is always willing to advise potential series authors on the submission of proposals. Normally material to be submitted for a proposal would comprise a copy of the author's doctoral dissertation (where this is relevant), a full outline of proposed revisions, and ideally two sample revised chapters; note that the established length for books in the series is no greater than 90,000 words, including footnotes and bibliography. Advice from at least one and usually two experts in the field will then be taken in the usual way.

All proposals are submitted to formal meetings of the Editorial Board, which take place at regular intervals throughout the year. Books are normally published within a year of the delivery of the final manuscript to the publisher. Currently seven volumes per year are published.

If you would like to submit a proposal to the Series, please contact the Executive Secretary in the first instance.

The Society will not consider any work which is simultaneously being considered by another publisher, in the UK or elsewhere; not does it undertake co-publishing.

Forthcoming volumes in 2011-2012

Mark Curran, Religion, Atheism and Enlightenment in pre-Revolutionary Europe

The baron d'Holbach's prolific campaign of atheism and anti-clericalism in the years around 1770 was so radical that it provoked an unprecedented public response. yet the strongest response came from an unlikely source - independent Christian apologists, Catholic and Protestant, who attacked the baron on his own terms and, in the process, irrevocably changed the nature of Christian writing. This book examines the reception of the works of the baron d'Holbach throughout francophone Europe. It insists that d'Holbach's historical importance has been understated, argues the case for the existence of a significant 'Christian Enlightenment' and raises questions about existing secular models of the francophone public sphere. This highly accessible book will be invaluable, both for specialists, and for undergraduates and postgraduates studying the public sphere and the Enlightenment.

Samantha Williams , Poverty, gender and life-cycle under the English Poor Law, 1760-1834

Social welfare was under growing pressure by the first third of the nineteenth century when levels of poverty soared. This book examines the poor and their families during the final decades of the old Poor Law. It takes the lived experience of poor families in two Bedfordshire communities, and contrasts their experience against of other parishioners, from the magistracy to the vestry, and from overseers to village ratepayers. It explores the problem of rising unemployment, the provision of parish make-work schemes, charitable provision and the wider makeshift economy, together with the attitudes of the ratepayers. That gender and life-cycle were crucial features of poverty is demonstrated: the lone mother and her dependent children and the elderly dominated the relief rolls. Poor relief might have been relatively generous but it was not pervasive - child allowances, in particular were restricted in duration and value - and it by no means approximated to the income of other laboring families. Poor families must either have had access to additional resources, or led very meagre lives.

Ben Weinstein, Liberalism and Local Government in Early Victorian London

In the second quarter of the nineteenth century the British capital witness a growing polarisation between metropolitan Whig politicians and the increasingly vocal political force of London radicalism. Though Whiggery was a political creed based on tenets such as the defence of parliament and free trade, it has been traditionally thought out of place and out of favour in large urban settings, in part because of its association with aristocracy. By contrast, this book shows it to have been an especially potent force in the early Victorian capital. from the mid-1830s, metropolitan radicals displaced the older radical rhetorics, and in so doing drove metropolitan radicalism towards a retrenchment--obsessed and anti-aristocratic liberalism.