Author Description

This is a meticulous and scholarly study of the polemical press of the 1740s, and the first substantial investigation of the politics of the Pelham regime for a generation. Robert Harris examines the vigorous and wide-ranging debate in tracts and periodicals about the principal issues of the day--the fall of Walpole, the influence of Hanover, the Forty-Five, and the War of the Austrian Succession. Harris's detailed analysis of the confusing and fragmented politics of the 1740s sheds important light on patterns of change and continuity in the political culture of mid-eighteenth-century English politics. A Patriot Press makes an important contribution to our understanding of political ideology and party strife in the eighteenth century, as well as to our knowledge of the workings of the press.