nineteenth century. In a wider sense still, of course, education was central to thewhole Enlightenment project. The idea that human beings could achieve knowledgeand use it to shape both their own destinies and the life of society as a whole wasespoused in one way or another by all major thinkers of the period. And in Germany,the emergence of an educated class, of a reading and reasoning public, was a majorforce for social and political change. The educated constituted the functional elite thatmodernised the state by means of reform in the late eighteenth and early nineteenthcenturies, in particular by seizing the initiative after the French had destroyed theHoly Roman Empire. As the Bildungsbürgertum, the educated effectively created thesocial and cultural framework for the nineteenth century.

This excellent volume will be indispensable to scholars for many years to come. Itfully justifies Joachim Heinrich Campe’s characterisation of the eighteenth century as‘das pädagogische Jahrhundert’.

Joachim WhaleyGonville & Caius College, Cambridge

Negotiating for Georgia. British–Creek Relations in the Trustee Era, 1733-1752.Julie Anne Sweet. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. 2005. 277 pp.US$39.95 hb. 1-8203-2675-5.

This is an effective and well-grounded account that adds significantly to ourunderstanding of relations with Native Americans in the eighteenth century. Ratherthan assuming the validity of an overall model, Sweet, Assistant Professor at BaylorUniversity, argues the case for the need to understand the role of very differentcircumstances, which ensured that the ‘middle ground’, to employ a recent term inthe literature, meant very different situations. The role of individuals in mediatingrelations emerges clearly in this account with James Oglethorpe, the British leader,and Tomochichi, the Lower Creek leader, each playing key roles. Tomochichi indeedvisited London. On the whole, thanks to the co-operation between the two men, therelationship between the new colony and the Creeks was a good one, and certainlycontrasted markedly with the situation in the Carolinas. Co-operation was importantbecause there were major cultural differences between the two sides that threatenedto accentuate specific points in dispute. The two parties, for example, had, as Sweetpoints out, conflicting notions of diplomacy. Whereas Europeans and European-Americans viewed treaties as permanent and absolute contracts that applied to allmembers of the nationalities that had accepted the conditions, Native Americans, onthe other hand, saw treaties as temporary arrangements that would remain in forceuntil conditions or leadership changed and that were binding among only theparticipants who were involved in the process of making those arrangements. Thiscontrast, which needs to be qualified by due note of the way in which colonistsrepudiated earlier treaties in their quest for land, helped make the practicalimplementation of agreements difficult, but, in the case of the British and the Creeks,there were also the challenges posed by differing British views about the mostappropriate governmental form for the new colony, as well as the dynamic provided bythe other players involved, which included both other Native Americans and otherEuropean colonists. Thus, Oglethorpe wanted the Creeks to play a role against Floridaduring the War of Jenkins’ Ear. As Sweet shows, there was important co-operation,but also major differences in warmaking. The Creeks were more effective than the

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European-Americans, and, in his second advance on St Augustine, Oglethorpe foundit appropriate to adopt some of his allies’ military techniques. Their value hademerged in the earlier attempt on the Spanish base. Sweet’s book also throws light onthe problems that affected the relationship between the Trustees and the colonists. Asthe latter became established, they stepped up their pleas for relief from the burdensimposed on them by the administration overseas. The Trustees, however, deniedrepeated requests to lift the regulations on land ownership, alcohol consumption andslave usage. In the end the Trustees surrendered the charter. A fine book on aninstructive episode.

Jeremy BlackUniversity of Exeter

A Mad, Bad, and Dangerous People? England 1783-1846. Boyd Hilton. Oxford:Oxford University Press. 2006. xxv + 757 pp. 16 illus. £30.00 hb. 978-0-19-822830-1.

Tombstone volumes of this type often go wrong because they have to cover so much,or intimidate by their length. My mother indeed looked at this book and said it was toolong for her. A pity, because this is a particularly fine example of the type, wide-ranging in scope, ably organised, judicious in reflection and throughout interesting.For me the test is not the pace on those sectors with which I am comfortable, but thesubjects that generally do not excite, and here again it is pleasant to report that Hiltonpulls it off. He is as fair a guide on class and ideology, the latter covered in a highlycomprehensive manner, as he is on the nuts and bolts of politics which take up four ofthe ten chapters. The latter emphasis is defended on the grounds that the lateeighteenth-century revolutions had led to the flourishing of political ideology andthat this had politicised society as a whole, a remark that can be critically probed, butthat offers a cogent explanation. If there is a criticism, it is that the local and regionaldimensions, while not neglected, are underplayed. Furthermore, a book on Englandmight have something more to say on relations with Scotland and Wales, althoughIreland gets good coverage. The writing is arresting – ‘Disraeli crucified Peel in 1846,but Peel was more than a little willing to shed his own mediatorial blood’; and there isa fine grasp of general trends. For example, Hilton addresses the mid-nineteenth-century shift in mood, linking social groups, politics and ideas in a clear fashion.Eighteenth-century scholars will welcome the clear narrative and find interesting abook that emphasises modernity and looks forward instead of stressing continuity.Indeed, Hilton starts from the premise that neo-conservative (‘Throne and Altar’)ideology, far from representing an ancien régime, was a new development following theAmerican and French Revolutions and that it was a reaction against the ‘progressive’ideologies associated with those events. This is a valuable perspective, although itunderplays the impact of the end of the Stuart challenge and the reconciliation ofdynasty with political Anglicanism that followed George III’s accession. Hiltoncorrectly argues that it is misleading to suggest that political allegiance was mainly acase of material self-interest. Instead, as he suggests, Pitt the Younger won the supportof capitalists as much because his rhetoric flattered their self-esteem as anything,while high farming sometimes appealed or repelled for cultural rather than economicreasons.

The eighteenth century is now covered in this series, with Julian Hoppit’s A Land ofLiberty? England 1689-1727, followed by Paul Langford’s A Polite and Commercial People.

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