The second volume of The Cambridge Urban History examines when, why, and how Britain became the first modern urban nation - the wonder of the Western world. The contributors offer a detailed analysis of the evolution of national and regional urban networks in England, Scotland and Wales and assess the growth of all the main types of towns - from the rising imperial metropolis of London to the great provincial cities, country and market towns, and the new-style leisure and industrialising towns. They discuss problems of urban mortality and migration, the social organisation of towns, the growth of industry and the service sector, civic governance, and the rise of religious and cultural pluralism. This is the first ever comprehensive study of British towns and cities in the early modern period, the culmination of a generation of research on perhaps the most important social and geographical change in British history.