The people, the empire, the political subject: all three were contentious issues in the politics and culture of eighteenth-century English cities. This study explores how these three issues came to occupy central roles in the wide-ranging political cultures of English towns between the Hanoverian Succession and the American war, enabling a variety of groups outside the structures of the state to claim a stake in national affairs.

This exciting study demonstrates the central role of "the people," the empire, and the citizen in eighteenth-century English popular politics. Pioneering in its focus on provincial towns, its attention to the imperial contexts of urban politics and its use of a rich and diverse array of sources--from newspapers, prints and plays to pottery and tea-cloths--it shows how the wide-ranging political culture of English towns attuned ordinary men and women to the issues of state power and thus enabled them to stake their own claims in national and imperial affairs.