Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution

God's Englishman

This is the classic life of Cromwell by one of the great radical historians of the English Civil War 
 
'A triumph of complex interpretation and delicious prose ... Hill introduced nuance into the character of Cromwell and the nature of his revolution ... the finest of guides to the man of the times' Tristram Hunt, Guardian 
 
'A humane and imaginative book by a historian writing at the peak of his powers' Ivan Roots, Daily Telegraph 
 
'This is the most intelligent summation we have on Cromwell, and it is written with the grace and power we have come to expect from Hill' J. P. Kenyon, Observer 
 
'One of the finest historians of the age' The Times Literary Supplement 
 
 'The dean and paragon of English historians' E.P. Thompson

The master ... Hill is the reason why most of us know anything about the 17th century at all

Christopher Hill (1912-2003) was educated at St Peter's School, York, and at Balliol College, Oxford, and in 1934 was made a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. In 1936 he became lecturer in modern history at University College, Cardiff, and two years later fellow and tutor in modern history at Balliol. After war service, which included two years in the Russian department of the Foreign Office, he returned to Oxford in 1945. From 1958 until 1965 he was university lecturer in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century history, and from 1965 to 1978 he was Master of Balliol College. 
 
His publications include Lenin and the Russian Revolution; Puritanism and Revolution; God's Englishman: Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution; The World Turned Upside Down; Milton and the English Revolution, which won the Royal Society of Literature Award; A Turbulent, Seditious and Factious People: John Bunyan and His Church, which won the 1989 W. H. Smith Literary Award and The English Bible and the Seventeenth-Century Revolution, which was shortlisted for the 1993 NCR Book Award.

A nuanced biography of Oliver Cromwell, breaking down Cromwell's life into different parts: fenland farmer and humble backbencher; stalwart of the good old cause and the New Model Army; key figure of the Commonwealth; and finally Lord Protector. Hill leads the reader unsentimentally through Cromwell's life from his beginnings in Huntingdonshire to his brutal end. Hill brings all his considerable knowledge of the period to bear on the relationships 'God's Englishman' had with God and England. Such a detailed understanding of the workings of providence is vital to understanding Cromwell.

Christopher Hill

Radical Ideas During the English Revolution

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. The relations between rich and poor classes, the part played by wandering 'masterless' men, the outbursts of sexual freedom, the great imaginative creations of Milton and Bunyan - these and many other elements build up into a marvellously detailed and coherent portrait of this strange, sudden effusion of revolutionary beliefs.

Christopher Hill

Books by Christopher Hill

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