The English Aristocracy, Its Crises, and the English Revolution, 1558-1660

Abstract

“A landmark in the historical landscape” —The Economist; “A major contribution … an impressive achievement, which must in future put all historians in his debt” —The Listener; “A remarkable achievement … an outstanding study of a very real and great value” —History; “A mammoth and marvellous book” —American Historical Review; “Immense value” —English Historical Review; “A model” —Journal of Economic History; “A major historical contribution … a magisterial and seminal work” —Journal of Modern History; “A brilliant and original contribution” —New York Review of Books; “Social history at its absolute best” —Past and Present.Such was the chorus of critical encomium that greeted the publication of Lawrence Stone'sCrisis of the Aristocracy, 1558-1641. Despite the chorus Stone could hardly have helped being disappointed at the actual reviews. One or two were almost as fatuous as they were brief. Others, sensible within their limits, were still too short. This seems to have been the fault of editors, so intimidated by the pejorative sense of the term “discrimination” that they refuse to discriminate between a work worth more than twenty pages and one worth less than twenty words, performing their editorial duties in the matter of book reviews with a sort of timorous and lunatic egalitarianism. Moreover, in considering Stone's work, many of the reviewers hastily plunged into what has come to be called “the gentry controversy” or “the storm over the gentry,” and some became almost totally immersed in it.