Download or read book The English Town, 1680-1840 written by Rosemary Sweet and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-06-17 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An impressively thorough exploration of the changing functions, character and experience of English towns in a key age of transition which includes smaller communities as well as the larger industrialising towns. Among the issues examined are demography, social stratification, manners, religion, gender, dissent, amenities and entertainment, and the resilience of provincial culture in the face of the growing influence of London. At its heart is an authoritative study of urban politics: the structures of authority, the realities of civic administration, and the general movement for reform that climaxed in the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835.