Spectres of John Ball
The Peasants' Revolt in English Political History, 1381-2020
1st Edition
Will be published approx. on 15. March 2022
Book
Paperback/Softback
544 pages
978-1-80050-136-2 (ISBN)
Description
For centuries, the priest John Ball was one of the most famous - or infamous - figures in the history of English rebels. Ball was one of the central figures of the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 and was soon vilified, receiving a hostile press for 400 years as an archetypal enemy of the state and a religious zealot. His reputation was rescued at the end of the eighteenth century, and, for over one hundred years, he rivalled Robin Hood and Wat Tyler as a great English folk hero. But his 640-year reception involves much more.
Spectres of John Ball explains how we get from an apocalyptic priest and advocate for violent retribution to someone who promoted democracy and vague notions of love and tolerance. This book also explains why he has gone out of fashion - and whether he can make another comeback.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
816 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-80050-136-2 (9781800501362)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Prof James Crossley is the Academic Director of the Centre for the Critical Study of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements (CenSAMM) at Kings College London and Professor of Bible and Society at MF Oslo. He was previously Professor of Bible, Culture, and Politics at the University of Sheffield and St Mary's University.
Content
1 Introduction: 1381 2 The Quest for the Historical John Ball 3 Exit Ball: Late Medieval Receptions 4 Ball and the English Reformation 5 Ghosts of 1381: Uneasy Heresies, Radicalisms, and Discontents in Late Elizabethan and Early Jacobean England 6 The Priest of Baal in Revolutionary England 7 Perverted Liberty and the End of Stuart England: Ball among Whigs, Tories, Jacobites, and Other Mobs 8 Georgian John: From Mob Rule to Reasonable Demands 9 Revolution, Once Again: A Freeborn Englishman in the Late Eighteenth Century 10 The Second Coming of John Ball: John Baxter, Robert Southey, and 1790s Radicalism 11 After Waterloo: The Poet Laureate's John Ball 12 'Peaceably If We May, Forcibly If We Must': Ball among the Chartists 13 Haranguing after Chartism: The Making of the Victorian Ball 14 Class Struggle among the Historians 15 William Morris: Delaying Ball's New World 16 Still Dreaming of John Ball 17 Red John? Ball after the Great War 18 Bolshevik Ball 19 Cold War Ball 20 Rodney Hilton: Ball at the End of Historical Materialism? 21 Ball after 1968 22 1381/1981 23 Twenty-First Century Ball 24 Epilogue