English Social History

a survey of six centuries, Chaucer to Queen Victoria

Plot

Social history, writes G.M. Trevelyan, is "the history of a people with the politics left out". This book offers an unparalleled portrait of everyday English life, from the emergence of the English as "a racial and cultural unit" in Chaucer's day through six varied and kaleidoscopic centuries to 1901. Beneath the surface of the great changes in political and military history "social change moves like an underground river"; it is Trevelyan's unique achievement in this inspiring and evocative book to capture every tiny detail of its ebb and flow.