Puritanism & Revolution

Nov 16, 2024 6:44 PM

Author:Christopher Hill

This illuminating collection of essays assesses the seventeenth century, interpreting what used to be called 'The Puritan Revolution', the ideas which helped to produce it and resulted from it, and the relation between these ideas and the political and economic events of the day. Each essay approaches the subject from a different angle, looking at aspects of the revolution - whether religious, constitutional, economic or biographical - in conjunction with a lively sympathy for the men who lived in that revolutionary time. Analysing the writings of Marvell, Hobbes, Harrington and Samuel Richardson, as well as less 'respectable' writers, Professor Hill examines the legacy of the Reformation and the inspiration provided by ideals like the Brotherhood of Man and the desire to re-create a pre-Norman Golden Age. A book that no serious student of our history should miss; it is a treasury of interesting detail and strong ideas, CV Wedgwood.

Reviews

His account is as gripping a tale of scholarly detection and discovery as one could hope to find

—— Margaret Drabble , Observer

Bernal makes an exotic interloper in Classical studies. He comes to them with two outstanding gifts: a remarkable flair for the sociology – perhaps one should say politics – of knowledge, and a formidable linguistic proficiency… The ‘fabrication’ of Ancient Greece…will never pass as a natural identity again

—— Guardian

The value of the book lies in his massive and meticulous demonstration of how scholarly views of the past are moulded (and repeatedly modified) by the changing political environment in which scholars pass their lives... Black Athena is certainly a stimulus to thought

—— London Review of Books

Has the virtues of force, clarity, wealth of ideas and a voracious intellectual curiosity

—— Times Higher Educational Supplement

A swashbuckling foray into the very heart of racist, Eurocentric historiography... Already one can hear the knives being sharpened against Bernal

—— City Limits

Popular history in the best sense...its attention to human detail and its commanding prose call to mind the best work of Barbara Tuchman

—— Washington Post

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