Harris presents a new picture of political life in mid-eighteenth-century Britain. Drawing on a great deal of original material, the book argues that British politics and political culture in that period have often been poorly understood through overemphasis on "stability." Using a thematic approach, it clearly reconstructs a political world in which vital issues continued to exercise the minds and emotions of those who made up the contemporary "political nation, " a group that included far more than a handful of politicians who competed for national office.