The debate on the English Revolution

by R.C. Richardson

This firmly established essential guide to the literature in the field appears here in a much revised third edition. New chapters are included on twentieth-century historians’ treatments of social complexities, politics, political culture and revisionism, and on the Revolution’s unstoppable reverberations. All the other chapters have been amended and recast to take account of recent publications. The book provides a searching re-examination of why the English Revolution remains such a provocatively controversial subject and analyzes the different ways in which historians over the last three centuries have tried to explain its causes, course and consequences. Clarendon, Hume, Macaulay, Gardiner, Tawney, Hill, and the present-day revisionists are given extended treatment, while discussion of the work of numerous other historians is integrated into a coherent, informative and immensely readable survey.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

195 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1977

Reviews

[imngrer · Rating 4 out of 5]

The historiography of the English civil wars is almost as fascinating and complex as the civil wars themselves. This book was a fascinating and enjoyable read following the accounts of the contemporaries of the wars themselves through the various Whig incarnations to the twentieth century Marxist and then revisionist approaches.