The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England

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It was a new world of wealth, creativity, and daring curiosity, but also of greed, pugnacious arrogance, and colonial violence. The main population still lived in the countryside though industrialisation was just beginning with Newcastle coal being shipped to London. One can easily understand the simple progression from battling against hierarchies within a church to fighting against hierarchies anywhere. He enables us to see the deep continuities in the period, and to understand how the arguments that dominated the seventeenth century have had a profound and formative effect on Britain’s democracy today. Despite the radical changes that transformed England, few today understand the story of this revolutionary age.

It provides a narrative based history which proceeds at pace through the period from the ascension of King James I (of England) to the Proclamation of William and Mary as King and Queen, taking in all of the major events of the era (from Gunpowder plot, to Charles I ascension, the Civil Wars, the King’s execution, the Republic and the Restoration and the brief reign of James II culminating in the Glorious Revolution). Cavendish’s achievements were considerable, including a early work of speculative/utopian fiction, The Blazing World and Other Writings, and being the first female inducted into the Royal Society (discussed natural philosophy, which is the contemporary description of scientific knowledge). It definitely confirmed to me that hereditary titles above Baron (which can be earned in the UK) should be abolished, if you can’t “earn” a title like you could when they were relevant, then you shouldn’t be able to pass them on either! These ideas eventually led to the belief that a government should serve at the behest of the people. As has been said, “history is just one damn thing after another”, but I begin to understand how true this is for the English Civil War, which forms the central section of this book.The nature of political legitimacy, the threats of populist frenzy, the longing for transparent representative structures and the debates over their limits, the power of media and the manipulation of images in political life: as Healey indicates, these are not remote issues. Any changes made can be done at any time and will become effective at the end of the trial period, allowing you to retain full access for 4 weeks, even if you downgrade or cancel. was political not military, as was the selection of Cromwell as leader: "The new regime had toppled the monarchy and established the power of the Commons, but they had done so without rooting the new government in actual popular consent. I was keen to read about the Levellers, a group so ahead of its time and its aspirations still in the 21st century a pipe dream in a country still defined by its class system and elite with the royals at the top. Which is good because I needed the 50,000-foot view as this time and place is out of my area of normal reading.

The century began with James VI of Scotland heading south to become England's James I and ended five monarchs later with a Dutchman and his English wife on the throne. The author, a professor at Oxford University, delivers a clearsighted narrative of 17th-century England, deftly integrating original and insightful analysis of underlying social phenomena and expressing his enthusiasm in brisk, wryly humorous and occasionally bawdy prose. Healey’s elegant narrative provides a sure guide through the century’s labyrinthine political intrigues while analyzing deeper social dynamics that he crystallizes in dramatic scenes of hierarchies being suddenly upended. It also includes rather a lot about Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, which although interesting, read as though inserted to introduce a female voice. There's a reticence about taking on such a complex and turbulent period, but the rewards, as The Blazing World manifestly demonstrates, are very great .

The similarities between those times and our own (on both sides of the Atlantic) are impossible to ignore. In religion there were Catholics vs Protestants, of course, then splintering into Calvinists, Puritans, Quakers, Presbyterians, and free-thinkers around the fringes, of whom some wanted government power to enforce worship of their version of God and others who wanted to pry that power from government. In 1647, the year of the extraordinary Putney Debates – skilfully documented here by Healey – at which army agitators comprehended modern democracy, a bovine Charles failed to seize his great opportunity.