The Experience of Revolution in Stuart Britain and Ireland

by Michael J. Braddick (Editor), David L. Smith (Editor)

This volume ranges widely across the social, religious and political history of revolution in seventeenth-century Britain and Ireland, from contemporary responses to the outbreak of war to the critique of the post-regicidal regimes; from royalist counsels to Lilburne's politics; and across the three Stuart kingdoms. However, all the essays engage with a central issue - the ways in which individuals experienced the crises of mid seventeenth-century Britain and Ireland and what that tells us about the nature of the Revolution as a whole. Responding in particular to three influential lines of interpretation - local, religious and British - the contributors, all leading specialists in the field, demonstrate that to comprehend the causes, trajectory and consequences of the Revolution we must understand it as a human and dynamic experience, as a process. This volume reveals how an understanding of these personal experiences can provide the basis on which to build up larger frameworks of interpretation.

348 pages, Hardcover

First published June 9, 2011

About the author

A specialist in early modern British history, Michael Jonathan Braddick, FBA, FRHistS is Senior Research Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. Educated at the University of Cambridge (BA, PhD) he was Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Head of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities from 2009 to 2013 and Professor of History at the University of Sheffield from 2013 until 2024.