Information, Institutions, and Local Government in England, 1550-1700

Investigates the reasons for and consequences of the wide-scale changes to the nature of local government in early modern England: a shift from 'open' to 'closed' management of a host of problems--from the representation of authority itself to treatment of every kind of local disorder, from petty crime and poverty to dirty streets.

Paul Griffiths is Professor of Early Modern British Cultural and Social History at Iowa State University. He is the author of Youth and Authority: Formative Experiences in England, 1560-1640 (OUP, 1996) and Lost Londons: Change, Crime, and Control in the Capital City, 1550-1660 (CUP, 2008). His Cambridge PhD was supervised by Keith Wrightson and he has also taught at the universities of Cambridge, Warwick, and Leicester. He has held National Humanities Centre and National Endowment of the Humanities fellowships.

Introduction
1: '(Mys)precyson'
2: 'Manifestaccon'
3: Punishment
4: Institutions
5: Information
6: Turning Inside