Politics Under the Later Stuarts

"This is an original and important book for the scholar and specialist. It combines synthesis of the latest scholarship with the author's own archival research to offer compelling new insights into the nature of the struggle between Whigs and Tories, and the reasons why these bitter partisan rivalries cut so deeply into English society during the period. Moreover, its chronological range allows Professor Harris to examine important questions about continuity and change in the political strife of these years which have hitherto been left unexplored." "It is also a book that is easy for the student and non-specialist to enjoy, for Tim Harris brings the conflicts of the time vividly alive to the modern reader. He explains how the party configuration of subsequent British politics emerged as it did in these crucial years - but he also shows why the issues that underlay it were of such burning importance, and so difficult to resolve, for the men and women who crowd his pages."--BOOK JACKET.