In Praise of Ordinary People

Introduction: Margaret Jacob and Catherine Secretan PART I: A NEW SELF-PERCEPTION 1. The 'Simple Burgher' of D.V. Coornhert (1522-1590): A Dutch Freethinker Opens the Door to a New Age; Dorothee Sturkenboom 2. Common People as Individuals: Hobbes's Normative Approach to the Ordinary Mind; Luc Foisneau 3. News as a Path to Independence: Merchant Correspondence and the Exchange of News during the Dutch Revolt; Jesse Sadler PART II: THE CAPABILITIES OF ORDINARY PEOPLE AND THE BIRTH OF THE COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL WORLD 4. 'Ordinary' People and Philosophers in the Laboratories and Workshops of the Early Industrial Revolution; Larry Stewart 5. Accounting and Accountability in Dutch Civic Life; Jacob Soll PART III: NEW APPROACHES TO THE POPULIST VOICE 6. The People in Politics: Early Modern England and the Dutch Republic Compared; Maarten Prak 7. The Populist Voice of the Early Enlightenment; Margaret C. Jacob 8. 'This fleshlike isle': The Voluptuous Body of the People in Dutch Pamphlets, Novels and Plays 1660-1730; Inger Leemans 9. Ordinary People in the New World: The City of Amsterdam, Colonial Policy and Initiatives from Below, 1656-1664; Frans Blom and Henk Looijesteijn PART IV: FORGING THE INDIVIDUAL 10. Depression and Evangelicalism in the Family of Esther Tuke; Phyllis Mack 11. Self-Disciple and the Struggle for the Middle in Eighteenth-Century Britain; Matthew Kadane