Samuel Johnson and the Politics of Hanoverian England

This is a lively and readable reinterpretation of the Georgian political order. Samuel Johnson's life (1709-1784) spans most of the eighteenth century. His contacts in the literary and cultural, scholarly, and political worlds were wide, including Gibbon, Goldsmith, Fox, Burke, Reynolds, Adam Smith, and many others. This book uses Johnson's remarkable career as a point of entry into Hanoverian England. John Cannon explores major contemporary issues, such as education, the poor, capital punishment, the colonies, religious toleration, and Toryism. He challenges many assumptions about Johnson's own attitudes, and offers a substantial modification to the traditional picture of Johnson and the political world of the eighteenth century.