The world turned upside down
From the subtitle "Radical Ideas during the English Revolution", a classic work by a major English radical scholar of a modern view of the English Revolution. The history of the rise of English Dissenters both political and religious pre-Civil War (1641) to the Restoration (1660). A discussion of the underlying social, economic, political, and religious influences of the period. An in depth discussion of the various individuals,the radical groups, and their writtings that were attempting to influence the political and social structure of the country, and a rising middle class. A well researched and footnotes work with an interesting Conclusion for modern scholars, and historians to discuss, and review on one of the major periods in English and Western History. A must read for any scholar of the period.
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What Hacker News says
- Surprising they don’t mention Fernand Braudel:
https://www.amazon.com/Civilization-Capitalism-15th-18th-Cen...
The Annales journal was established in 1929 and shaped the context of everything that Christopher Hill did:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annales_school
Braudel is the most famous of the historians from this school. His book “The Structures Of Everyday Life” established historiography on the basis of what ordinary people did in their ordinary lives: what they ate, what they wore, how they worked. And Braudel was building upon ideas already established by the founders of the Annales school. But this enormously influential group of historians were a constant source of inspiration to Christopher Hill, and I think shaped the way he wrote The World Turned Upside Down.
I recommend both Hill and Braudel, both pillars of my intellectual life.
- By far, my favorite book on this era, The World Turned Upside Down, by Christopher Hill:
https://www.amazon.com/World-Turned-Upside-Down/dp/014199313...
As the book summary says:
"Within the English revolution of the mid-seventeenth century which resulted in the triumph of the protestant ethic—the ideology of the propertied class—there threatened another, quite different, revolution. Its success “might have established communal property, a far wider democracy in political and legal institutions, might have disestablished the state church and rejected the protestant ethic.” In The World Turned Upside Down Christopher Hill studies the beliefs of such radical groups as the Diggers, the Ranters, the Levellers, and others, and the social and emotional impulses that gave rise to them. "
It's an amazing look at the revolutions inside the revolution, the radicals who wanted to go beyond the radicalism of the moment.
But keep in mind, to go from a standard history to this history is like studying animals on land, and then deciding to study animals in the sea. You are stepping into a different world. Christopher Hill himself once remarked that when he compared his index to the indexes of the best known histories of the period, he noted how little overlap there was.
- It doesn't go very far into the protectorate-- that's nearly always a separate book-- but I think that Christopher Hibbert's Cavaliers and Roundheads: The English Civil War, 1642-1649 does a really good job. More in depth but I think interesting to a lot of HN readers would be The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution by Christopher Hill.
If you have the time, I think that Veronica Wedgwood's (she published as CV Wedgwood) history of the era is pretty great. The writing is fun and engaging. The problem is, it's contained in four books:
The King's Peace The King's War The Trial of Charles I Oliver Cromwell
I don't think that Dame Wedgwood is really someone that academics read anymore (she's definitely old school history), but her scholarship is good and she wrote wonderfully.
- I recently read "The World Turned Upside Down" and I was surprised by the parallels:
https://www.amazon.com/World-Turned-Upside-Down-Revolution/d...
During the English revolt, the censorship of the press was suspended, and people could publish anything. And they did. And the number of inaccuracies spread rapidly.
It became common to argue that England had once enjoyed a rough democracy during the Anglo Saxon days, even though there is no evidence of that.
It became common to argue that studying the Bible was unimportant, compared to the importance of being moved to speak by the Holy Spirit.
A number of establishment figures thought they could stop the spread of error simply by writing books pointing out the errors -- which seems very similar to what is happening now.
After the King was killed, and the official Church limited in its legitimacy, a problem arose that no one had the legitimate authority to determine if someone was the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, so more and more people began to claim that they were, in fact, the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. And the competition among these so-called Second Christs somewhat resembles fights among modern day influencers on YouTube.
In the end, the public became exhausted with the way nothing seemed to have any legitimacy, and which point the public became nostalgic about having a King. And this made it inevitable that eventually the monarchy would be restored.
