This book examines the development of the English state during the long seventeenth century, emphasising the impersonal forces which shape the uses of political power, rather than the purposeful actions of individuals or groups. It is a study of state formation rather than of state building. The author's approach does not however rule out the possibility of discerning patterns in the development of the state, and a coherent account emerges which offers some alternative answers to relatively well-established questions. In particular, it is argued that the development of the state in this period was shaped in important ways by social interests - particularly those of class, gender and age. It is also argued that this period saw significant changes in the form and functioning of the state which were, in some sense, modernising. The book therefore offers a narrative of the development of the state in the aftermath of revisionism.

Professor Michael Braddick FBA

B.A., Ph.D. (Cantab.)

Professor of History

Early Modern England; State in Early Modern England, 1550-1700

I was educated at Cambridge University where I took both my B.A. and Ph.D. degrees. I was Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama and Assistant Professor at Birmingham-Southern College, Alabama before coming to Sheffield in 1990. I have held fellowships from the British Academy, the Nuffield Foundation and a Major Research Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust. I have also held visiting scholarships at the Huntington Library, California, the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History in Frankfurt, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris, and an ARC distinguished visiting fellowship at the University of Adelaide.

I have published widely on aspects of state formation and forms of political resistance in early modern England. I am also co-editor of two essay collections and of a major edition of seventeenth century letters. My most recent publications are God's Fury, England's Fire: A New History of the English Civil Wars and edited collections on The politics of gesture: historical perspectives and The experience of revolution in Stuart Britain and Ireland, the latter co-edited with David L Smith.

I was previously Pro-Vice-Chancellor for the Faculty of Arts and Humanities.