Volume 34, Number 3 · February 26, 1987
The Century of Revolution
By Lawrence Stone
Rebellion or Revolution? England 1640–1660
by Gerald E. Aylmer
Oxford University Press, 275 pp., $24.95
Authority and Conflict: England, 1603–1658
by Derek Hirst
Harvard University Press, 390 pp., $35.00
Faction and Parliament: Essays on Early Stuart History
edited by Kevin Sharpe
Methuen, 292 pp., $13.95 (paper)
Revel, Riot and Rebellion: Popular Politics and Culture in England 1603–1660
by David Underdown
Oxford University Press, 370 pp., $29.95
Wallington's World: A Puritan Artisan in Seventeenth-Century London
by Paul S. Seaver
Stanford University Press, 258 pp., $29.50
Order and Disorder in Early Modern England
edited by A. Fletcher, edited by J. Stevenson
Cambridge University Press, 248 pp., $44.50
Parliamentary Selection: Social and Political Choice in Early Modern England
by Mark Kishlansky
Cambridge University Press, 258 pp., $10.95 (paper)
The seventeenth century in England has been called 'The Century of Revolution.' It is the last period when there occurred on English soil physical violence on a large scale, involving up to 10 percent of the adult males, and a large if ephemeral eruption of radical ideologies. The patterns that emerged from that turbulent century set the stage for England's subsequent, astonishing rise to preeminence in wealth, power, empire, intellect, high culture, constitutional stability, and social cohesion. It is thus not surprising that the causes, nature, and consequences of the upheavals of that century have ever since been the subject of vigorous debate and disagreement, each generation reinterpreting the past in its own image. A look at two new textbooks, two major analytical monographs, an intellectual biography, and two volumes of essays on single themes, makes it possible to see not only where the history of seventeenth-century England stands in the mid 1980s, but also to compare the relative merits of the textbook, the monograph, and the essay.
Review, 7883 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |