'stylish scholarly, and readable book' Environment and Planning D: Society and Space'excellent . an exciting and imaginative book, which does a marvellous job of welding social and architectural history.' Times Higher Education Supplement'Borsay's lucid and stimulating book makes a major contribution . Borsay has written a book which deserves a wide readership.' Robin Pearson, University of Hull, Business History, Vol 32 No 3 July 1990'a book which is both an education and a delight . This is a deeply learned, splendidly argued, beautifully written and wonderfully stimulating volume. It is unquestionably one of the best urban studies we have had for many a long day.' Angus McInnes, University of Keele, History, No.

245, Oct 1990'a cogent, not to say compelling, thesis . will certainly stimulate debate . More than that, it is a book to be recommended to a wide readership. There is a mine of information on provincial towns, information which will be of especial value to schoolteachers engaged on project work for GCSE and to local historians.' J.L. Bolton, Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London, Economic History Review, Volume XLIV, No.1 February1991'The essential argument of this wide-ranging, perceptive, well-informed and entertaining (yes, entertaining) book is that "in the century after the Restoration of 1660, English provincial towns experienced a cultural renaissance".

To this revival Peter Borsay offers a detailed guide . The classified information about townscapes and amenities listed in Dr Borsay's town-by-town appendix, and the discussions and questions clearly set out in the three mainsections of his book - landscape, leisure, society - provide an invaluable framework and stimulus for future work, not just on individual English towns but on those of Scotland, Wales and Ireland as well.' Literature and History'a substantial and important contribution . a fascinating, imaginative and significant monograph which deserves to be read by every student of late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English history. The extent of his research into the available sources is most impressive; the bibliography alone is likely to prove a boon to other historians. The author's argument is generally sharply focused and clearly structured, and it is presented in precise andfluent prose. This handsomely produced book is, in fact, a model of how to organize a mass of varied data into a coherent whole.' H.

T. Dickinson, University of Edinburgh, Social History, Vol. 16, No.1, January 1991'a work which should be studied and digested by all interested in urban history' Lincolnshire History and Archaeology, 25, 1990'The century after the Restoration saw the evolution of the sort of town we recognise today, a self-sufficient unity rather than a focus for a rural community. Borsay traces their development with an eye for fascinating detail.' The Observer.