Synopses & Reviews
Oliver Cromwell ranks as one of the most hotly debated figures in the whole of English history. He has been both applauded and reviled and his memory invoked in periods and in countries other than his own. This complex historiography has left us today with many different versions of Cromwell as man, general and statesman and the conflicting images are the subject of this book.
Based on the unfinished magnum opus of the leading seventeenth-century scholar, Roger Howell (1936-89) this book also includes chapters by a team of leading international experts on a broad range of subjects originally planned by Howell himself. Published for the first time are Howell's studies of the reactions to Cromwell in the Restoration period and in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Added to these are reprints of his essays on psychohistorical approaches to Cromwell and on Cromwell's contribution to English liberty. Further historiographical portraits of the Protector are offered in chapters by W. A. Speck, Ivan Roots, Toby Barnard, Peter Karsten and R. C. Richardson. Their chapters consider Cromwell and the Glorious Revolution; Carlyle's Cromwell; Irish images of the Protector; American interpretations; and the comparisons made between Cromwell and the twentieth-century dictators. The editor finishes by providing an appraisal of Roger Howell's place in seventeenth-century studies and a bibliography of his principal writings.This book will interest scholars of the English civil war and under graduate students of seventeenth-century history.
Synopsis
Oliver Cromwell has been both applauded and reviled and his memory invoked in periods and in countries other than his own. This complex historiography has left us today with many different versions of Cromwell as man, general and statesman of which the conflicting images are the subject of this book. Available in paperback for the first time, this classic study is based on the unfinished magnum opus of the leading scholar of seventeenth-century history, Roger Howell (1936?89). It includes chapters by a team of leading international experts on a broad range of subjects originally planned by Howell himself. It includes Howell's studies of the reactions to Cromwell in the Restoration period and in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Added to these are reprints of his essays on psychohistorical approaches to Cromwell and on Cromwell's contribution to English liberty. Further historiographical portraits of the Protector are offered in chapters which consider Cromwell and the Glorious Revolution; Carlyle's Cromwell; Irish images of the Protector; American interpretations; and the comparisons made between Cromwell and the twentieth-century dictators.
Synopsis
Oliver Cromwell ranks as one of the most hotly debated figures in the whole of English history. This complex historiography has left us today with many different versions of Cromwell as man, general and statesman and the conflicting images are the subject of this book.
About the Author
R. C. Richardson is Emeritus Professor of History, University of Winchester
Table of Contents
Introduction: Roger Howell, Jr, and Oliver Cromwell
1. Appreciations and reminiscences of Roger Howell, Jr
2. Images of Oliver Cromwell - Roger Howell, Jr
3. 'That imp of Satan': the Restoration image of Cromwell - Roger Howell, Jr
4. Cromwell and the Glorious Revolution - W. A. Speck
5. Cromwell, the English Revolution and political symbolism in eighteenth-century England - Roger Howell, Jr
6. Carlyle's Cromwell - Ivan Roots
7. 'Who needs another Cromwell?' The nineteenth-century image of Oliver Cromwell - Roger Howell, Jr
8. Cromwell and the inter-war European dictators - R. C. Richardson
9. Cromwell and his parliaments: the Trevor-Roper thesis revisited - Roger Howell, Jr
10. Cromwell's personality: the problems and promises of a psychohistorical approach - Roger Howell, Jr
11. Cromwell and English liberty - Roger Howell, Jr
12. Irish images of Cromwell - Toby Barnard
13. Cromwell in America - Peter Karsten
Appendix
Index