This fourth volume in the History of Wales deals comprehensively with the events between the civil war and the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution. The central theme is the development of powerful social forces which took an impoverished and sleepy nation to the threshold of unprecedented social, economic, and political change.

Drawing on a wide range of sources, the book reveals how demographic growth, agrarian improvements, the development of trade and heavy industries, improved communications, the provision of educational facilities, the emergence of Dissent and Methodism, and the revival of Welsh culture influenced the making of modern Wales.