Making sense of the eighteenth century

Pressures on curriculum time force us all to make difficult choices about curriculum content, but the eighteenth century seems to have suffered particular neglect. Inspired by the tercentenary of the accession of the first Georgian king and the interest in the Acts of Union prompted by this year's referendum on Scottish independence, Katharine Burn explores some of the dimensions that tend to get lost, and asks how much they matter. Drawing on a range of scholarly interpretations, on the evidence around us in the period's surviving buildings and on the dazzling array of printed materials that poured off the presses once the the monopoly of the London Stationers' Company had been overturned, she offers ideas for a range of enquiries that might help to redress the balance...