An opinionated survey of the 18th century which ever seems to anticipate the coming of the 20th. Plumb divides the years 1714-1815 into three eras, those of Walpole, Chatham, and Pitt the younger, while elucidating the incipience of the Industrial Revolution from 1750. At the start of the era, for all the excitement of the closing of the revolutionary era, the country was decidedly premodern. Improved social organization emerged through local administrative reform. So too politics were personal rather than based in the party: Walpole sought to marginalize Tories but was too engaged in courtly intrigue to be a master statesman; his usage of patronage enabled the Duke of Newcastle to establish the Whig ascendancy at the expense of the Hanovers; the landed gentry became the opposition. Chatham, taking power in 1756, surmounted the French but shortly England lost the American colonies as England under George III failed to recognize they had come of age. But she gained immense wealth and power from India. The now-familiar enclosures of the English countryside were taking shape, while towns began turning from administrative centers into early industrial hubs centered around the mill or mine (instead of the feudal castle). Social organization improved with still more local administration, and in combination with improved medicine and public health, helped the poor live longer and so create a rising commercial elite — who bumped up against the squirearchy. Burke’s campaign for economic reform (of the monarchy) trumped association reform (of parliament), which had to wait until 1832. Also in the second half of the century, Bohemian romantics abjured aristocracy and classicism, and embraced the French Revolution, as did Fox, whose break with Burke split the party for a generation. Most of the nation rallied behind Pitt (supported by George and the City of London) against the French threat, initially by sea power alone, and then to the standard of Wellington. The English emerged justifiably proud but also arrogant.