Although historians have always studied towns widespread interest in urbanhistory as a specialised historical field is relatively recent. This newfashion has st... » 

Although historians have always studied towns widespread interest in urbanhistory as a specialised historical field is relatively recent. This newfashion has stimulated the development of a major controversy about thefortunes of towns in England between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries.Some see them as prone to crisis and frequently subject to decay while othershave held that many of them prospered in these centuries. This book guides thereader through the controversy summarises the opposing arguments and adds newinsights derived from the authors own research. Alan Dyer argues that theproblem lay in the rise and decline of regional economies rather than the riseand decline of the towns which lay in those regions. An extensive bibliographywith notes helps the reader to come to his or her own conclusions. «