Abstract:It has seen a revolution in urban historiography in Britain from 1950s to 1970s or so, which made urban history became a separate research field, and the modern urban history came into being. WilliamGeorgeHoskins, the celebrated British historian, played a pioneer role in therevolution. He not only brought provincial towns especially the small towns into research category of urban history which led the spatial turn, but also helped to establish the paradigm of economic and social history in the field which guided the perspective turn from 1930s, therefore he made a great contribution to the urban history particularly the early modern period in Britain. That is to say, he developed a new paradigm and approach to replace and transcend the traditional legal and constitutional as well as economiccounterparts in British urban history. In a word, he promoted the research of modern urban history on manyaspects, and made a foundation for the growth of urban history as a historical discipline in Britain.

Published on Urban History Research, Volume 47, 2023.