This unusually bold and thought-provoking book offers a new interpretation of the course of English history. While it focuses on the period from the twelfth century to the seventeenth, and especially on the later middle ages of c.1300-c.1550, its story of the “commoning” of the English political system—the rise of the common people and their concerns to the centre of politics—has very wide resonances, extending to the industrial revolution, the British Empire and beyond.