Intellectual Origins Of The English Revolution

This is a revised edition of Christopher Hill's classic and ground-breaking examination of the motivations behind the English Revolution and Civil War, first published in 1965. In addition to the text of the original, Dr Hill provides thirteen new chapters which take account of other publications since the first edition, bringing his work up-to-date in a stimulating and enjoyable way. This book poses the problem of how, after centuries of rule by King, lords, and bishops, when the thinking of all was dominated by the established church, English men and women found the courage to revolt against Charles I, abolish bishops, and execute the king in the name of his people. The far-reaching effects and the novelty of what was achieved should not be underestimated - the first legalized regicide, rather than an assassination; the formal establishment of some degree of religious toleration; Parliament taking effective control of finance and foreign policy on behalf of gentry and merchants, thus guaranteeing the finance necessary to make England the world's leading naval power; abolition of the Church's prerogative courts (confirming gentry control at a local level); and the abolition of feudal tenures, which made possible first the agricultural and then the industrial revolution. Christopher Hill examines the intellectual forces which helped to prepare minds for a revolution that was much more than the religious wars and revolts which had gone before, and which became the precedent for the great revolutionary upheavals of the future.

This is a revised edition of Christopher Hill's classic and groundbreaking examination of the motivations behind the English Revolution, first published in 1965. In addition to the text of the original, Dr Hill provides thirteen new chapters which take account of other publications since thefirst edition, bringing his work up-to-date in a stimulating and enjoyable way.

In Some Intellectual Consequences of the English Revolution, Christopher Hill takes up themes that have emerged from a lifetime's investigation into the causes of the English Revolution. However, Hill does more than analyze the origins of the Revolution. He examines the ways the seeds of change sown during the revolution, grew into transformative politics in the period following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. Hill argues that the intellectual heritage of the English Revolution was mixed. While he acknowledges its achievements, he also depicts some of its failings. Consequently, he challenges the view that radical notions faded with the Restoration, suggesting instead, that they continued in pervasive and subtle ways throughout the course of English and American history. The apparent similarity between the England of 1640 and that of 1660 is shown to be illusory. Each period's institutions survived but the social context had changed. In this way, Hill demonstrates how intellectual consequences cannot be separated from the social and economic factors of the nation that produced them. He concludes that historians should turn their attention to the "unofficial" radical heritage that is less easy to comprehend, though no less important. This is a highly readable and provocative account by one of the world's foremost historians.

Remarkable reinterpretation of Milton and his poetry by one of the most famous historians of the 17th Century In this remarkable book Christopher Hill used the learning gathered in a lifetime's study of seventeenth-century England to carry out a major reassessment of Milton as man, politician, poet, and religious thinker. The result is a Milton very different from most popular imagination: instead of a gloomy, sexless 'Puritan', we have a dashingly original thinker, branded with the contemporary reputation of a libertine. For Hill, Milton is an author who found his real stimulus less in the literature of classical and times and more in the political and religious radicalism of his own day. Hill demonstrates, with originality, learning and insight, how Milton's political and religious predicament is reflected in his classic poetry, particularly 'Paradise Lost' and 'Samson Agonistes'.

Though the book is entitled English Revolution, it covers more than just the eras often attributed to the term. As a matter of fact, the book is instead a collection of lectures on several subjects relating to sudden upheaval in English society, including the English Reformation era alongside the English Civil Wars and Commonwealth period. The lecturer and author of the book is an English philosopher, political radical and temperance reformer, and a member of the British idealism movement - Thomas Hill Green.

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.

This graphic depiction of a turbulent era in British history examines the lives of commoners and the nobility. The author combines vivid description with provocative argument to describe these exciting and dramatic events.