Folio Society Published Works Number 2823
Hill, Christopher - God's Englishman Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution
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Hill, Christopher - God's Englishman Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution (Published in by The Folio Society in 2013. Bound in cloth. Blocked with a design by Raquel Leis Allion. Set in Baskerville. 304 pages. Frontispiece and 24 pages of colour and black & white plates. Printed endpapers. Book size: 9.5" x 6.25". In the opening of this acclaimed history, Christopher Hill puts forward his central argument: that the 17th century was the defining period in English history – the one in which England became 'the first industrialised imperialist great power' – and that the decisive figure was Oliver Cromwell. First published in 1970, this exhilarating book has never been surpassed as a portrait of Cromwell and his times. Hill paints a nuanced portrait of the 'Huntingdonshire gentleman' who was both a radical Protestant and a social conservative. He acknowledges Cromwell's vision and powers of leadership, but also his ruthlessness and his responsibility for massacres in Ireland. Unlike other Marxist historians, he emphasises Cromwell's lack of interest in dogma: 'Few politicians can have been so innocent of political theory as Oliver Cromwell.' Hill's own Methodist upbringing helped him understand the central importance of religion to Cromwell. In the essay entitled 'Providence and Oliver Cromwell', he shows how the Puritan belief that they were carrying out a divine plan lent the Parliamentarians formidable strength in pursuing their cause, even to the point of executing a king for the first time in modern Europe. )
