In the late English Renaissance, writers as varied as Shakespeare, Hooker, Bacon, and Hobbes problematically engaged the traditional idea of order and helped define a new, secular one. In this intellectual history, Collins treats the idea of order as a dynamic concept which incorporates changing views of self, society, and the relationship between private and public during these years. He sees this as a process of meaning redefinition that simultaneously heightens and comes to terms with the dissolution of the old idea of order; the self-consciously articulated concept of the representative sovereign state replaces the vision of the divine cosmos as the medium for identity and social order. Collins draws on a wide range of political, literary, and other contemporary writings to chart this process--now associated with secularization--providing a provocative analysis of social and intellectual change.