In Praise of Ordinary People

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

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2. Introduction

   1. Introduction

      • Margaret Jacob, Catherine Secretan

      Pages 1-16

3. A New Self-Perception

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 17-17

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   2. The “Simple Burgher” of D. V. Coornhert (1522–1590): A Dutch Freethinker Opens the Door to a New Age

      • Dorothee Sturkenboom

      Pages 19-46

   3. Common People as Individuals: Hobbes’s Normative Approach to the Ordinary Mind

      • Luc Foisneau

      Pages 47-63

   4. News as a Path to Independence: Merchant Correspondence and the Exchange of News during the Dutch Revolt

      • Jesse Sadler

      Pages 65-92

4. The Capabilities of Ordinary People and the Birth of the Commercial and Industrial World

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 93-93

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   2. “Ordinary” People and Philosophers in the Laboratories and Workshops of the Early Industrial Revolution

      • Larry Stewart

      Pages 95-122

   3. Accounting and Accountability in Dutch Civic Life

      • Jacob Soll

      Pages 123-138

5. New Approaches to the Populist Voice

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 139-139

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   2. The People in Politics: Early Modern England and the Dutch Republic Compared

      • Maarten Prak

      Pages 141-161

   3. The Populist Voice of the Early Enlightenment

      • Margaret C. Jacob

      Pages 163-180

   4. “This Fleshlike Isle”: The Voluptuous Body of the People in Dutch Pamphlets, Novels, and Plays, 1660–1730

      • Inger Leemans

      Pages 181-202

   5. Ordinary People in the New World: The City of Amsterdam, Colonial Policy, and Initiatives from Below, 1656–1664

      • Frans Blom, Henk Looijesteijn

      Pages 203-235

6. Forging the Individual

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 237-237

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   2. Depression and Evangelicalism in the Family of Esther Tuke

      • Phyllis Mack

      Pages 239-256

   3. Self-Discipline and the Struggle for the Middle in Eighteenth-Century Britain

      • Matthew Kadane

      Pages 257-273

7. Back Matter

   Pages 275-290

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The discipline of social history has still not given enough attention to the ways in which the perceptions and roles of "ordinary" people changed over time. In these fascinating British and Dutch cases, we see how the study of this evolution imparts historical texture and enables us to understand early modernity with greater clarity.

• Britain
• England
• enlightenment
• history
• individual
• industrial revolution
• novel
• perception
• revolution
• social history

to come

Luc Foisneau, Maison Française d'Oxford, UK Jacob Soll, University of Southern California, USA Frans Blom, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands Henk Looijesteijn, International Institute of Social History, Netherlands Larry Stewart, University of Saskatchewan, Canada Inger Leemans, VU University, Netherlands Maarten Prak, University of Utrecht, Netherlands Jesse Sadler, University of California Los Angeles, USA Dorothee Sturkenboom, independent scholar Matthew Kadane, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, USA Phyllis Mack, Rutgers University, USA

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